Today is World Mental Health Day

Mental well-being has been a topic close to my heart ever since my family was affected by the most devastating outcome of a mental health condition. The impact of this changed a lot of our lives forever, but has also meant that as a family, we are keen to spot the signs of someone struggling with their mental health and we speak candidly about our feelings at the dinner table every night.

However, I have to admit it can be hard to find the time to look after my mental wellbeing. Exercise is my respite; anything from cycling, running and skiing clears my mind and alleviates some of my day-to-day stress. But, in between travelling to our offices, sitting in back-to-back meetings, and commuting for 3 hours a day, it can be very easy for me to find reasons to avoid exercise.

This October I have no excuse but to get myself out and running. This year’s theme for World Mental Health Day is 'Make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority.’ It is therefore apt that the 2022 Gleeds Global Challenge is centred around the themes of mental health and the environment. For the month of October, Gleeds has partnered with the app Treekly, where for every 5000 steps or more that each of us walks in a day, Treekly plants a tree in Madagascar (a country severely affected by deforestation). One week into the challenge, and we have over 1400 employees, friends and family members turning their footsteps into forests; we have planted over 30,000 trees and walked a total of 115,380,624 steps!

In my opinion, Treekly hits all the spots; mental health and wellbeing, contributing to our sustainability agenda, raising awareness of both these topics within our business and encouraging everyone to have fun! Since using the app, I have spent a lot more time walking both individually and with my family, something we really enjoyed in the pandemic and are glad to pick up again.

Alongside this, I’m embarking on my own global challenge, combining a number of sustainable and wellbeing practices in my day to day life - hitting my 5,000 steps a day while at Expo Real in Munich last week, not using any single-use plastic, eating in restaurants with locally sourced products…My most positive takeaway from this week’s challenges was that through walking more and thinking ‘local’ I got to see so much more of Munich than I would normally do on a work trip.

This week, in line with World Mental Health Day, I will be undertaking challenges using the 5 ways to wellbeing promoted by the NHS; get into nature, learn a new skill, give to others, connect with friends and family, and exercise.

I’m looking forward to all of these challenges this week, but most of all, connecting with friends and family. World Mental Health Day is a chance to talk about mental health, how we need to look after it, and how important it is to talk about things and get help if you are struggling. So, if there is anything that you can do after reading this, I ask you to please share how you are genuinely feeling and reach out to your loved ones and ask them - how are you? You never know, someone might be desperate to be asked.?