The campaign
Time to Talk is RUSU’s campaign to start conversations about our mental health. We hope that by starting these conversations, we’ll begin changing the culture of student mental health and reduce the stigma that often leads to people feeling unable to open up about how they feel.
It can be a very difficult and confusing time with you’re struggling with your mental health, particularly with the portrayal of mental health in the media, and we want all students at Reading to know that they’re not alone.
Throughout the year we’ve been running events on mental health, but for Mental Health Awareness Week (13th - 17th May), we’ll be providing videos, myth busting and running workshops with student groups and university partners to encourage conversation and provide tools to help you with your mental health.
What does ‘mental health’ actually mean?
Often, people associate the term ‘mental health’ with having a mental illness. A mental health charity, Mind, offer a really good explanation of what mental health means:
In many ways, mental health is just like physical health: everybody has it and we need to take care of it.
Good mental health means being generally able to think, feel and react in the ways that you need and want to live your life. But if you go through a period of poor mental health you might find the ways you're frequently thinking, feeling or reacting become difficult, or even impossible, to cope with. This can feel just as bad as a physical illness, or even worse.
Mental health problems affect around one in four people in any given year. They range from common problems, such as depression and anxiety, to rarer problems such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Check back here for videos and activities we’ll be running during the week as well as information on the different workshops we have to offer.