*Virtual High Five*

Today, the 6^th of February, has been my favourite day this year. I’m fully aware that there are still 328 days to go in 2014 but something pretty spectacular would have to happen to beat this one. I saw Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the news swarmed with people talking about mental health and as far as I’m concerned, the more people there are talking, the less there are not talking. Every single time I saw somebody post something about mental health, I smiled. So basically, I’ve been smiling all day!

Time to Change have done a fantastic job at spreading the word about mental health and today everybody that works within this campaign should be proud because people have certainly been talking! Such a miserable topic has been made into something that people can just chat about, something that people aren’t afraid to chat about. I’ve actually been surprised that I’ve spent the day talking about mental health problems yet I’m feeling on top of the world right now, ironic eh?

I’ve spent the day ‘spamming’ everybody’s Facebook news feed today so I may take a break from it all for a few days but that doesn’t mean the conversations should stop at midnight. Today, many of us decided it was Time to Talk so tomorrow maybe we should all decide to keep talking.

If you still haven’t had your daily dose of Time to Change then check out their live blog to see just how much has been happening:

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/talkday-liveblog

So many amazing things have been happening today and I think that everybody involved should give themselves a pat on the back because it’s not easy to talk about mental health problems, it should never be underestimated how difficult it is!

Time to Change, you’ve done fantastically. *Virtual High Five*. Same again next year?

One in a Million

You knew this was coming, we’re mere hours away from Time to Talk Day so it is time to get talking. Tomorrow is the first of it’s kind, there has never been a day dedicated to talking about mental health and the great thing about talking is that everybody does it! Tomorrow, Time to Change is aiming for a million conversations about mental health, and with over 60 million people in the UK I’d like to think that that would be simple. However, it’s only simple if people actually do it!

It doesn’t take much to read this blog post, in fact it take very little effort. However, it takes a lot of guts to actually start a conversation about mental health and this is purely because many of us feel like we would be judged for it. That is exactly the reason this day exists. You don’t need to have had a mental health problem to talk about mental health and even if you have had one then you don’t have to come out and tell the world. But wouldn’t it be easier that if you ever did have a problem, you were able to tell somebody without being judged, ridiculed, discriminated against?

On average, each blog post I write is read 100 times, so theoretically if every person who reads this started a conversation about mental health then that’d be 100 chats that probably never would have happened. However, I know full well that many people won’t talk about it, so let’s use the 1 in 4 statistic and say that 25 of you will start a conversation. Are you one of the brave ones?

Conversations are easier than ever to have due to social media, no awkward eye contact or stumbling over your words is needed. Something as simple as a status about mental health, a Time to Talk profile picture for the day or even just a tweet using the hashtag #TimeToTalk, really can make the world of difference.

If you’re thinking this isn’t something that affects you so not something you need to support then just remember the 1 in 4 statistic, I’m pretty sure that there is more than 4 people on this earth that you love, and nobody is immune to mental health problems. Tomorrow it is Time to Talk, so be one of the brave ones, be one in a million.