Coronavirus and looking after your mental health

The Mayor of London is working with hundreds of London’s health, care, charity, education and business organisations through Thrive LDN and partners to ensure the mental health of Londoners’ remains a priority as we begin to recover from the pandemic.

In London, there are a range of free resources, online tools, and helplines available to help you cope and stay mentally healthy. These include:

• To help build resilience and maintain good wellbeing, Thrive LDN have pulled together a collection of tools, ideas and inspiration for helping yourself and others.
• The NHS-approved digital mental wellbeing service, Good Thinking, promotes proactive self-care for the four most common mental health conditions: anxiety, low mood, sleeping difficulties and stress. It delivers a clinically validated self-assessment tool that provides personalised recommendations.
• If you have been bereaved or are supporting someone who has been, you can find advice and information on the London Remembers webpages. For advice that is faith-based and sensitive to different cultural needs of Londoners you can find guides on the Good Thinking website.
• Young Londoners have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Good Thinking has suggestions of apps and resources specifically designed to support young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
• The Mix also has support for young people, covering everything - from mental health to money, homelessness to finding a job, break-ups to drugs.
• The ‘Six ways to improve your wellbeing’ guidance is available in English and 36 other languages to support migrant communities.

If you do not require urgent support but are still concerned about your mental health, contacting your GP is a good place to start. You can also refer yourself for free, non-urgent NHS psychological therapy services, also known as Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services, which provide evidence-based treatments for depression and anxiety.

It is quite common to experience short-lived physical symptoms when your mood is low. The NHS has advice on managing the physical symptoms that are triggered by stress and anxiety.

A mental health emergency should be taken as seriously as a physical one. You will not be wasting anyone’s time. Your local borough mental health crisis helpline is for people of all ages.

If you have an existing mental health condition and an assigned care team or care worker, then it’s important to contact them.

Alternatively, when life is tough the Samaritans are here to listen at any time of the day or night. You can talk to them about anything that’s troubling you, no matter how difficult.

Call free on 116 123 or visit the Samaritans website.

Shout offers confidential 24/7 crisis text support for times when you need immediate assistance.

Text SHOUT to 85258 or visit Shout Crisis Text Line.