The Proper Mental Podcast (Proper Mental Podcast)

Welcome to episode 180 with Andrew Jenkins, who is a mental health advocate, speaker and star of the hit BBC series The Traitors.

At the age of 21, Andrew was in a car accident that left him pronounced dead at the side of the road.

He spent 5 weeks in a coma and when he woke up, was told that he might not recognise his family or be able to walk.

The impact that this had on his sense of self, his identity and his life in general would lead to more struggles with mental ill health for the next 20 odd years before Andrew was able to get some help and guidance with his mental state and begin to grieve for the life that he believed he had lost.

In this episode I chat to Andrew about his life growing up in Wales before the crash and the immediate aftermath.

We chat about the impact that this event had on his mental health and why he suffered in silence for so many years.

And we chat about how he got help, got better and how this is driving him to do the work that he does now and the impact that this is all having.

Of course, we chat all about The Traitors and about men’s mental health, grief, building self-awareness, how hard it can be to tell your family that you love them but why it’s so, so important.

Andrew is a lovely guy who is determined to make a real difference in the mental health space and he’s been doing incredible work since being on the tele earlier this year.  It was really lovely to chat to him all about it!

Follow him on social media @andrewjenkinsofficial and @strengthinyou.co.uk

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 7 and this week it's my story.

My name is Tom Davies and I’m the other host of The Proper Mental Podcast.  I am also a movement coach, yoga teacher and mental health advocate.

In 2016, after the birth of my first child, I started to struggle with my mental health.  It was the start of a long journey towards recovery and put a huge strain on my life and family.  I spent 2 years pretending that nothing was happening before my wife intervened.  Last year, after a particularly rough few months, I decided to close my business and focus purely on recovery.

While dealing with all this, I took strength from hearing other people talk about their own mental health and it was this that eventually led to The Proper Mental Podcast.

Chris and I chat about my journey, not asking for help, meditation, medication, self-talk and self-care.  It’s a big chat and we cover a lot of ground!  As usual we tackle some pretty dark subjects but there’s humour in there too.  I hope you find it relatable and I hope you get something from it.

I’ve got to admit I feel a bit nervous about putting this out!  I’m happy to chat to my family and friends about mental health and I consider myself open about the subject but putting it out to the world on a podcast is quite intimidating to say the least!

I want to encourage people to speak up and ask for help but I don’t want to skip over the fact that speaking up is incredibly hard to do.  It’s not easy, there’s a million reasons why people feel like they can’t.  I don’t believe in regrets but if I could change one thing then I would have asked for help sooner.  That’s something that really comes across in this chat.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 150!

I’m not sure if 150 episodes is an actual milestone or not, but it sort of feels like one so I wanted to mark it in some way.

I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to tell my own mental health story in a lot of different places but it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about myself on Proper Mental.

Very early on, episode 7 in fact, I did my own episode.  At that time, I had a really limited understanding of my own mental health.  I didn’t have the vocabulary that I do now and I hadn’t done any of work to explore what had really been going on.  I was only a few months post break down, newly medicated and still figuring it all out.  It was all very new.

Recently I’ve been getting asked about my experience a bit more and I realised it’s been a long time since I put anything out about me.  So, this feels like a good time to put something out.

I didn’t want to do a solo episode and just waffle on for an hour.  That feels self-indulgent and I think it would be boring for you to listen to and boring for me to record.

Last year I guested on a wonderful podcast called Full of Beans, it’s hosted by my friend Hannah (who is also a previous Proper Mental guest) and it was one of my favourite podcast appearances.

Hannah was good enough to let me have the audio and that’s what I’m putting out here.

Han is an incredible host.  She asks great questions; she really listens and she a lot of wonderful insight that her own experiences have given her.  I’ve guested on a lot of awesome podcasts but this one felt particularly special and I ended up chatting about things I wasn’t expecting to.

Huge thanks to Hannah for the original invite and for sharing the recording and go and check out Full of Beans because it’s brilliant!

You can follow Hannah on Instagram @thefobpodcast or connect with her via www.fullofbeansed.co.uk

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 138 with PC Leon McLeod!

On 3rd June 2017 three terrorists drove a white van into pedestrians on London Bridge, then leapt out and started attacking bystanders.

As the attack took place, Leon was just starting a night shift and happened to be walking through the area as the attack took place.  He was one of the first officers on the scene, giving chase to the attackers and administering first aid and getting people to safety.  He was later awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his actions that night.

Shortly after these events, Leon’s mental health started deteriorate and, in this episode, Leon takes me through his recollections of the attack, how it played out around him and the impact it all had on his mental state.

We talk about the days and weeks that followed, how he dealt with it all and the impact that it had on his personal life and the people around him.

Something that really stands out from Leon’s story is that although the catalyst for him was incredibly specific, the way it impacted him and how it all played out is really relatable and that just shows how much common ground there is when it comes to mental health and why sharing stories is so important.

This is an incredible episode and I cannot thank Leon enough for speaking so openly about his experiences.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 14!

This week my guest is Shareefa J!

Shareefa J is a presenter, model and mental health campaigner.  She is at the forefront of promoting body positivity and race diversity in the fashion and advertising space.

A couple of years ago, Shareefa used the hashtag #UOKHUN to connect with her followers and encourage them to speak up about how they were feeling and the overwhelming response to this led her to contact CALM and eventually become one of their mental health ambassadors.

She is also a huge advocate for the power of running and does a lot of work to encourage everyone who wants to be a runner to give it a go regardless of gender, size or any other reason that puts people off going for a run.  She has featured on the cover of several running magazines to spread this message.

Shareefa and I chat about the need for a mental health A&E, the good and the bad bits of social media, emotional maintenance and the long-term side effects of the pandemic on mental health.

Shareefa’s positivity about everything is really infectious and it was a lot of fun to chat to her!  We cover an amazing number of topics during the conversation and it was great for me to learn a bit about the body positivity movement and the modelling industry as neither of these things were previously on my radar.

You can connect with Shareefa via Instagram @shareefa_J and @shine4diversity.

You can also connect with CALM via social media @calmzone or read about their work with Shareefa at this link:

Meet Shareefa: CALM’s newest ambassador and body positivity champion  - Campaign Against Living Miserably (thecalmzone.net)

You can connect with me and the podcast @propermentalpodcast and I’d love to hear what you thought of this, or any other episodes!  I’m always happy to chat.

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 98 with Sarah Callaghan, who is an award-winning comedian, spoken word artist and writer.

Sarah has been performing stand up for over a decade and has gigged all over the world.  She is also a respected spoken word artist, performing solo and with a band.

Sarah’s poetry is informed by personal experience and her work discusses childhood trauma, heart break and other aspects of everyday life.

Sarah and I caught up to chat about her own experiences with mental health and how it inspires her creative process.

We chat about living authentically and choosing your own path, the differences between writing comedy and poetry, and we chat about spirituality, self-belief and the challenges of living a creative life.

I knew going in to this conversation that it was going to be good and it did not disappoint!  It was awesome to hear first-hand about Sarah’s way of looking at her life and her work and I really got a lot out of speaking with her.

You can watch her performance on the BAFTA winning Sky TV Show ‘Arts & Rhymes’ here:

Life and Rhymes | Sarah Callaghan - Who Are You? on Vimeo

Her website is Home (sarahcallaghan.com) and you can connect with her on Instagram @sarahcallagh1

The track included on this episode is called ‘It’s Not That Deep’

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 135 with Eddy Temple-Morris, who is a musician, DJ & Broadcaster.

He is also a patron for My Black Dog, a mental health charity and ground breaking peer-to-peer service that’s hosted by volunteers that all have lived experience so anyone who’s struggling can web-chat with someone who really gets it.

In this episode I chat to Eddy about his work with My Black Dog and his own experiences with anxiety, insomnia and suicidal thoughts.

We chat about mental wellbeing and the practices that Eddy uses every day to look after himself.  We cover meditation, the Wim Hoff Method, food, music, nature and all sorts of other wonderful things that are good for the mind, body and spirit.

And we chat about the importance of talking, connecting with others and the importance of shared experience and using ADHD as a super power.

Eddy has been actively involved in the mental health for a long time and has gained some incredible insights along the way.  He was actually on the dream guest that I wrote up when I first started Proper Mental so to get to chat to him was really special and he is just the loveliest man!

You can listen to Eddy on Virgin Radio through the week 10:00 – 13:00.

Catch up with everything that Eddy does via his website https://eddytm.com or via his social media @eddytemplemorris.

You can learn more about My Black Dog at www.myblackdog.co or @myblackdog_co

You can check out the record Eddy mentions towards the end here: The Nightfly - YouTube

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 176 with Vince Freeman, a singer and songwriter who is about to release a debut album that has been a decade in the making.

Vince started out by running and playing club shows and regularly racking up 300 gigs a year.  He appeared on The Voice in 2012, written multi-million streamer dance tracks, had 5 European Top 10 hits and played at the FA Cup Final and The Royal Albert Hall.  He even has a thank you on Ed Sheeran’s debut album.

He’s also experienced mental health issues and spent six years living in chronic pain with a debilitating back issue that required multiple surgeries and threatened his ability to walk and play music.

In this episode, Vince and I chat about his introduction to music and how he started writing songs and we chat about chasing fame, going on the voice, losing several years to a couple of compressed discs and 3 spinal surgeries and the impact these things have had on his mental health along the way.

And we chat about the pandemic forced a temporary career change and how making a coffee and a chance encounter led to his return to music and his debut album which is due out in June.

This is an incredible story of bad luck, resilience, hard work and good karma and it was wonderful to hear all about it.  Vince is the loveliest man it is impossible not to root for him!

Connect with him on social media @vincefreemanofficial and keep up to date with the album and the tour via his website https://vincefreeman.com

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 34, my guest this week is Frank Turner!

Frank Turner is a successful, internationally charting, award-winning singer and songwriter of consequential folk-punk-pop rebel songs.

His music covers topics like atheism, sexism, excessive drinking, and the power of rock & roll.

Originally a member of the punk band Million Dead, Frank went solo in 2005.  He was released 8 albums, 4 compilations, 1 best of and 5 E. P’s.  He has sold out Wembley arena, played over 2500 shows, including the London 2012 Olympic ceremony and now he’s added The Proper Mental Podcast to that impressive list!

I cannot thank Frank enough for his time and his honesty!  We chat about mental health and rock n roll, looking after yourself on tour, writing about tough subjects and the importance of doing things for other people.

Frank was also very open about his own issues with substance abuse and his experience with CBT therapy.

As a long-time fan of Frank and his music, this was a very special and surreal moment for me and luckily, Frank was lovely!

You can get tickets for Frank’s upcoming shows via his website www.frank-turner.com and you can get his music absolutely everywhere!

You can follow the podcast on all social platforms @propermentalpodcast and you can get in touch with me there or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

If you could take the time to 5 star review this episode and leave me some kind words it really would be awesome of you!

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 66, my guest this week is Joseph Bates, the co-founder and CEO of Halen, an app that is working to change how people view mental health and wellbeing.

Joe lost his father at a young age which led him to join the military as a sniper.  This would take him on back-to-back tours of Afghanistan with UK Special Forces.

By his mid-twenties he was working in The City in a fasted paced job and running on adrenaline and late nights and it was at this point that his emotions started to catch up with him and his mental health started to rapidly deteriorate.

Both therapy and coaching played a big part in his recovery journey and that’s where the idea for Halen was born.

Halen is an app that offers access to therapy and other forms of coaching and gives users the opportunity to pick who they want to work with in an easy and accessible way.

It was incredible to hear about Joe’s journey and the impact it had on his mental health and we cover a lot of ground in this episode!

You can learn more about Halen here:

Halen Strength

You can connect with them via social media @halenstrength and download for yourself wherever you get your apps from.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 151 with Kim Davies!

My wife Kim and I originally recorded and released this episode in April 2021.

At that time, we were both quite nervous about putting our story out there so I just slipped it out as a bonus with very little promotion.  It had such a wonderful response and is still one of the episodes that I get the most feedback from.

I can’t tell my story without Kim telling hers so I wanted to give it a proper release alongside episode 150 which is also out today and is me being interviewed on the Full of Beans podcast.

At that time Proper Mental was only a few episodes in and I was still very much learning on the job.

We put the kids to bed, set a mic on the table, put the kettle on and just had a chat in the kitchen.

It’s scruffy and loose and really quite beautiful to listen back to it now.

A lot came out in the conversation that neither of us were expecting and it was moving for me to get Kim’s side of the story.

We actually tried to do a follow up but it didn’t work and it just felt like there was nothing left to say.

This episode says it all.

Depression can be all consuming and as much as the person struggling feels like they are drowning, they can also be pulling the people around them under. 

This chat is a real insight in to watching someone you love suffer.

We chat about what it’s like to live with someone who is struggling, why it’s important to talk and how Kim navigated the ups and downs of my mental health.

We also chat about how my problems brought us closer together and by nearly ruining our marriage, actually made it stronger.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 193 with Tom Fleming of One True Pairing and formerly of Wild Beasts!

As a member of Wild Beasts, Tom released 5 acclaimed albums, one of them was nominated for the Mercury Prize and two of the records charted in the top 10.

Wild Beasts called it a day in 2018 with Tom putting out his first material as One True Pairing in 2019.  His new record, Endless Rain, is out later this month.

In this episode, Tom and I chat about growing up in small towns and finding community through being creative and making music.

We chat about masculinity, what that term means and how it’s affected by society, geography and the class system.

And we chat about depression and the guilt and shame that come with the bad behaviour that is caused by mental ill health and we chat about Tom’s autism diagnosis that received in his late thirties and how that’s impacted his life.

Follow Tom on Instagram @onetruepairing and connect via www.onetruepairing.co.uk or www.dominomusic.com.

Endless Rain is out on all formats on 25th October 2024.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 189 with Alex Staniforth, who is an adventurer, speaker and the founder of Mind Over Mountains, a charity that brings together walking in nature, mindfulness & professional coaching and counselling in support of good mental health & wellbeing.

Alex was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of nine and this would be the catalyst for several years of bullying, anxiety, panic attacks and a lifelong stammer.

He found that time in nature, and more specifically time on hills and mountains, helped his mental health and he was just 14 when he set his sights on climbing Mount Everest.

His first attempt, aged 18, ended when an avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall killed 16 climbing Sherpas.

During his second attempt, base camp was hit by the Nepal earthquake which killed 3 Sherpas in Alex's team.

This led Alex to a long period of survivor’s guilt, depression and Alex also fell in to bulimia, which he was still dealing with when he set out to climb all of the highest peaks in the UK, in 72 days, with only a bicycle for transport.

We talk about all of that in this episode.

We also talk about dealing with failure, why it’s important to take on challenges and what we can learn from both these things and we chat about identity and what it was like for Alex when he was forced to step away from endurance challenges by long Covid and how he had to learn to do things differently.

Follow Alex on social media @alexstaniforth_ and @mindomountains

Learn more at www.alexstaniforth.com and https://mindovermountains.org.uk

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 114 with Paul Andrew Williams, an acclaimed writer and BAFTA winning director.

Paul has an incredible body of work including T.V like Broadchurch and The Walk In and films like London to Brighton, Cherry Tree Lane and Bull.

He began his career as an actor and attended drama school and then went on to direct pop-promos and short films before releasing London to Brighton which won several awards.

Throughout his career Paul has dealt with mental health challenges and has had to learn how to balance his mental health while working in the world of film and television.

Paul is a big believer in talking about mental health and is always incredibly open and honest about his own experiences.

In this episode I chat to Paul about how and when he started to suffer and how his mental health has impacted him over the years.

We chat about mental health in relation to his work, his reluctance to take medication and why he changed his mind and we chat about imposter syndrome, anxiety and panic attacks.

Paul and I really hit it off and we were chatting away straight from the off!  He talks very openly about a recent patch of bad mental ill health and it’s a really moving and emotional part of the conversation.  He is a lovely, lovely man and it was an absolute pleasure to chat to him!

You can follow him on social media @pawcorestar and you can watch his films and television programs on all the main streaming platforms!

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 13!

This week’s guest is Nick Hogben!

Nick is an artist, podcaster and mental health advocate.

He is the host of The Mouth of Manliness podcast where he speaks to all sorts of guests about mental health and the general ups and downs of being a human being.  Because of the amount of people that Nick has spoken to, and the topics he’s covered, he has great insight in to mental health and it was awesome to chat to him about all stuff.

Nick is also a patron of My Black Dog who are an online support service for people struggling with their mental health which is manned by volunteers with experience in these types of struggles.

Nick has struggled with his own mental health related issues since the age of 9.  He’s is incredibly open and honest about his own journey and we chat a lot about his experiences in different aspects of mental health.

We chat about masculinity, medication, therapy, the importance of being honest, the power of conversation and juggling life and work with depression and anxiety.  We also chat a lot about podcasting, art, music and all sorts of other things in between!

This is a great episode and I really think it has everything!  It’s an open conversation, between two blokes, about dealing with mental health day to day.  It’s not particularly question led and we just go where the chat takes us, which is all over the place!

You can connect with Nick via social media

Instagram

@mouthofmanliness

@nickhogben

@lovess_artist

Twitter

@MofmanlinessPD

and please check out his back catalogue of guests as it is incredible and there are new episodes every week. 

www.mouthofmanliness.co.uk

You can also check out Nick’s artwork @loveless art and lovelessart.co.uk.

It would be great if you could have a look at My Black Dog, who Nick is a patron of, as they are doing incredible things!

@myblackdog_co

www.myblackdog.co.uk

And the link for the fundraiser mentioned in the intro is:

https://gofund.me/55f90c37

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

I recently had the absolute pleasure of little a catch up with Scroobius Pip!

For Black Friday, Pip turned his website into a donation site to raise money for the homeless charity Shelter and made himself available on zoom for anyone who donated!

I threw in a few quid and jumped on to say hello and ask him a question about mental health.  I was over the moon when he said he’d heard of my podcast!

I’d bribed my 4 year old with a penguin to stay out the way for 5 mins but as soon as I pressed record she started yelling down the stairs to tell me she had done a poo.

You can hear her in the background all the way through but Pip and I, like the two podcast professionals we are, completely ignored her.

What a lovely bloke and a lovely gesture for an incredible cause!

Nice one Pip, it was great to meet you!

Welcome to episode 49 and my guest this week is Gabriel Nathan!

Gabe Nathan is a suicide awareness advocate and writer.

He is also the Editor in Chief at OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication devoted to publishing first person essays and producing original documentary films about mental health, empowerment, and change.

Gabe lives with anxiety and depression, and has struggled with many aspects of his mental health and overall self-image since he was a little boy.

He first reached the point of considering suicide in college, after incessant bullying.

In 2019 Gabe drove 1100 miles around America with the National Suicide Prevention Hotline number emblazoned across the back of his 1963 VW Beetle.

He documented this journey and all the conversations he had along the way for his documentary “A Beautiful Day Tomorrow: Taking Suicide Awareness on the Road”.

Gabe and chat about his film, his car and his advocacy.  We chat about the stigma around suicide and how to talk about it.  We talk about why it’s important to talk and vital to listen.

You can watch the film here:

A Beautiful Day Tomorrow: Taking Suicide Awareness on the Road – A charming, sweet, human movie about a man and a car, devoted to spreading suicide awareness and prevention everywhere they go.

You can explore OC87 Recovery Diaries here:

Mental Health Recovery Stories - OC87 Recovery Diaries

You can watch his TedX talk here:

Driving Out Suicide: Tackling A Public Health Crisis with Love | Gabriel Nathan | TEDxWestChester - YouTube

And you can follow Gabe and Herbie on Instagram @lovebugtrumpshate

Connect with me below:

@propermentalpodcast

www.propermentalpodcast.com

www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Please take just a minute to rate and review this podcast!

If you need to find support in you local area, contact www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 195 with Dr Linda Gask who is a writer and a psychiatrist who has been an advisor to the World Health Organisation and been awarded the President’s Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2017.

Her latest book is titled ‘Out of Her Mind’ which asks the questions ‘Are we failing women’s mental health and what needs to be done?’

In this episode I chat to Linda about some of the more common societal factors that can impact the mental wellbeing of women and how she went about learning more about these issues for her book.

We chat about how the treatment of mental health has historically let women down and if that’s changed in more recent times and we chat about the role of feminism in this conversation and whether women are depressed or oppressed.

We also chat about community, single issue politics, medical gaslighting and men’s mental health too.

I really enjoyed chatting to Linda and I got a lot out of our conversation! 

Her book (and previous books) are available now and you can connect with her at Patching the Soul – Linda Gask or via @suzypuss1

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to another bonus episode of The Proper Mental Podcast!

This time around I’m joined by a few members of The Happy Chilly Dippers for a roundtable episode about all things cold water, community and mental health.

After episode 27 with founder Jazmin, I wanted to explore the idea of community and connection in a little more depth and it seemed like the best way to do that was to sit down with some of the community and ask them directly.

I sat down with Daz, Amanda, Kiera and Rosie to chat about trying new things, connecting with strangers, the power of nature and cold water on mental health and wellbeing and so, so much more!

It was an amazing experience to record in person and spend time with all of them!  We sat on the floor, pressed record and just started chatting and it was incredible where it ended up going!

I can’t thank these guys enough for giving up their Saturday morning to record with me and it was an absolute pleasure to be a part of this discussion.  They are all so passionate about their community and it really has changed lives. 

It’s out today and I would love to hear what you think!  You can connect with me on all social platforms @propermentalpodcast or via my new website www.propermentalpodcast.com. 

If you could take the time to leave me a 5-star review and some kind words I would really appreciate it!

Also, please feel free to share this one far and wide because it feels a bit special and very human and I think it’s got the power to inspire anyone who might need it.

If you need to seek support, find services close to you by visiting www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 94 with Kirsty Eaton, who is the founder of Reach Out for Mental Health,

Reach Out are a charity that supports individuals who experience suicidal thoughts and provides a safe, confidential and non-clinical space for you to talk to a trained volunteer about anything which may be troubling you.

She has her own lived experience of mental ill health and it was this combined with losing a friend to suicide that inspired Kirsty to start Reach Out in her local community.

On her journey to starting the charity Kirsty faced a huge amount of red tape and bad attitudes from some very unsupportive local health care organisations and really had to fight just to be able to support the people she knew needed it the most.

We caught up to chat about this process, the push back she got from people working in mental health care and what she did about it.

We also chat about Kirsty’s own mental health struggles, being a natural worrier and how it feels to come to the end of the therapeutic process.

Kirsty and her volunteers are doing incredible things and it was shocking to hear about the challenges she faced just trying to do something as important. 

She has specifically positioned Reach Out to support anyone who might fall through the cracks in the current system and it was awesome to chat about her plans for the future.

You can learn more about Reach Out for Mental Health here: Reach Out for Mental Health – Relief from suicidal thoughts and feelings (reachoutfmh.co.uk)

And follow them on social media on Twitter @reachoutfmh or Facebook @ReachOutFMH

You can listen to my episode on the Reach Out podcast here:  Push Fwd Network Platform | Podcast on Spotify

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 35, my guest this week is Rob Osman, the founder of Dudes & Dogs!

Dudes and Dogs is a wellbeing community for men to head out in to nature, with their dogs, and talk about anything they need to talk about.

Rob’s mission is to help men associate more openly with their emotions and their ability to express them, by redefining what masculinity means to individuals, regardless of social pressure or expectation.

Started in 2019 after Rob’s own struggles with anxiety and depression, they now have several groups over the U.K that are led by fully trained Dog Dudes.

They also have also extended to D&D Military, a men's mental health support group providing a safe space for men to open up and share the mental stress that they are holding onto.  As well as offering wellbeing consultancy packages for employers and businesses up and down the country.

You may also have heard Rob on BBC 6 Music or caught him being interviewed by Holly Willoughby and Bradley Walsh on the tele!

Rob and I chat about his own mental health journey, the idea behind D&D and how it’s grown.  We chat masculinity, community, music, emotions and all sorts of other mental health related stuff!

You can connect with learn more about D&D via their website

Dudes & Dogs | Dudes & Dogs C.I.C. (dudesndogs.co.uk)

or on Instagram @dudes_anddogs or Facebook Dudes & Dogs | Facebook

And you can watch Rob on the BBC here:

BBC iPlayer - Take Off with Bradley & Holly - Series 1: Episode 2

You can contact me about the podcast or anything else at all on social media @propermentalpodcast or email me from www.propermentalpodcast.co.uk.

Please take a minute or two to leave me a nice review, it really would be very much appreciated!

If you need to find mental health support services in your area please contact

Hub of Hope - Mental Health Support Network provided by Chasing the Stigma

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 95 with Samuel Jack, the musician and song writer behind the viral hit song, Feels Like Summer.

Samuel grew up in South Africa and is now based in London and before his music took off, he worked in high end hospitality to pay his way.

For years he juggled long, stressful shifts in kitchens with traveling for gigs and writing music and this would eventually catch up with him as his mental health declined to the point of breakdown.

In this episode Samuel and I chat about the pressures of working in hospitality and the particular lifestyle that comes with that line of work.

He takes me through his breakdown and everything that led to it and we talk about what happened as he moved out the other side and how he got well again.

We chat about his upbringing in Johannesburg and how it formed an early love of music, learning to write songs and the challenges of being a musician.

Of course, we chat about Feels Like Summer and how it feels to go viral and we chat about self-care, therapy, writing emotion driven songs and making music.

You can connect with Samuel via his website Samuel Jack | Official Website (samueljackofficial.com) or on Instagram @samueljackofficial and Twitter @samueljackmusic

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 185 with Dr. Gladys McGarey, who is a 103-year-old still-consulting doctor who is internationally recognised as the ‘Mother of Holistic Medicine’.

Dr Gladys was born in 1920 and grew up in India.  She joined Women’s Medical College during the second world war and when she began practising, women couldn’t even have their own bank accounts.

Gladys co-founded the American Holistic Medical Association and she was the first physician to utilise acupuncture in the U.S.

In this episode I chat to Dr Gladys about her childhood in India, her early interest in healing and what it was like to be a female doctor when being a female doctor wasn’t a thing.

We chat about training during WW2, how that influenced the language used in medicine and how she moved towards a different approach and started to think holistically.

We chat about finding purpose, learning to listen, claiming your voice and why grief is something that we do rather than something that happens to us.  And we chat about the 5 L’s that underpin Dr Gladys’ approach to a long and fulfilling life.

Dr Gladys is also a bestselling author and her latest book ‘The Well-lived Life’ is out now.

You can follow Dr Gladys on social media @begladmd and learn more about her life and work on her website www.gladysmcgarey.com.

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 90 part 1 with Jay Wheeler, a former soldier and street artist who creates under the name Love Art Global.

After 15 years in the army and multiple tours overseas, Jay was medically discharged with a diagnosis of PTSD.  In part 1 of this episode Jay takes me through his childhood in Wolverhampton and the traumatic upbringing that led him to joining the army.

We talk about his early years as a squaddie in Germany and what it was like to go to war.

Jay talks me through his time in Kosovo, training Iraqi soldiers in Iraq and the horrors of Afghanistan that led to his medical discharge.

Jay’s story then takes us back to Liverpool where suicide attempts become a regular occurrence and we talk about the darkest days of Jay’s mental health struggles.

Jay and I recorded this in person at his home in Liverpool where all of this took place.  He has an incredible story and an important story but it is not always easy to listen to so I’m putting it out in two parts so that you, the listener, can decide how and when you hear it.

If any of the content above might be too close to home or if today is not the best day to hear it then you can jump in at part 2, which picks up with art and recovery and works towards a happy ending.

It’s an incredibly moving conversation that I am immensely proud of and I can’t thank Jay enough for the faith and trust he has put in me to help him tell his story.

You can connect with Jay on all social platforms @loveartglobal

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 24!

My guest this week is Mikie Kitaruth from Radical Clothing UK!

Radical Clothing UK is a surf, skate, snow and music inspired clothing brand from Cornwall.

Mikie launched the brand after struggles with his mental health during the pandemic and with Radical he is doing things a bit differently to other clothing brands. 

Not only has beach life, snow covered mountains and being outdoors been Mikie’s passion for most of his life, but so has the fashion that comes with that lifestyle.  He wanted to combine that way of living with some aspects that are rarely spoken about, like mental health for example... so our mission is to launch ranges to help raise awareness, donate proceeds to charity and to help people feel ok to talk about things!

Raising money for Mental Health Awareness, the Everything is Radical range donates proceeds to selected charities whilst trying to help bring people together.

We chat about Mikie’s own mental health journey and how he got through it, we chat not only about the importance of reaching out for help but also how hard it can be to do and we chat about recovery and rebuilding after challenging times.

We also chat about depression and anxiety, flaws in the current mental health system, men’s mental health and all sorts of other stuff!

You can shop the current designs via the website www.radicalclothinguk.com and connect with Mikie via social media @radicalclothinguk.

If you would like to watch the video that Mikie and I talk about in the episode, you can do so here:

Everything Is Radical - Mikie's Story - YouTube

You can follow the podcast on all social media platforms @propermentalpodcast and I would be absolutely over the moon if you would take the time to review this episode and maybe even subscribe so you don’t miss any others!

If you need to seek support, find services close to you by visiting www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 130 with Thom and Katie from The Lottery Winners!

The Lottery Winners are a four-piece indie-rock band hailing from the Leigh area of Greater Manchester. Their latest album, Anxiety Replacement Therapy, contains collaborations with the likes of Boy George, Shaun Ryder and Frank Turner and recently charted at number one in the U.K album charts.

The album has strong mental health themes throughout and I caught up with Thom and Katie before their recent show in Liverpool to chat all about the record.

We chat about the years of graft that went in to getting a number one album and how the band has dealt with the highs and lows of the music industry.

We chat about music and mental health, song writing, touring, medication and ADHD.  They also share an incredible story about what it’s like to be in the studio with Shaun Ryder!

To have an album at the top of the charts with the word ‘Anxiety’ in the title is huge for normalising talking about mental health and it was awesome to chat to the band about how that came about.

I’ve been a fan of these guys for a while and they are one of the best live bands around!  I cannot thank them enough for their time.  This was really cool for me and the band were so lovely and so much fun to chat to!

The record is out now and the band is touring throughout the rest of the year.  Go and see them live, it’s a wonderful experience!

Everything you need is here: thelotterywinners.co.uk

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 43!

My guests this week are Rebekah and Sarah from A drop in the Bucket!

A Drop in the Bucket is an honest (& frankly awesome) podcast that tells people’s stories of mental health and handling life’s stresses.

It is hosted by Sarah, who is a primary school teacher and Bekah, who is a clinical psychologist.

They join me this week to chat about mental health, supporting friends through tough times, the power of community and the importance of faith.

They chat to me about their own lived experiences of different aspects of mental health and we chat about holding space for others, the importance of relatable conversations and things that they are learning from podcasting along the way.

We also have a chat about The Enneagram system and how it’s helped both Bekah and Sarah in their lives and they give me some insight in to how it works and how it can help support good mental wellbeing.

Sarah and Rebekah have such a lovely friendship and it was a real pleasure to get to spend some time with them.

You can listen to A Drop in the Bucket in all the usual places and you can connect with them on social media @dropinthebucketpod.

You can also follow Sarah @sarahbrombles and Rebekah @enneagrampsych.

You can get in touch with me via www.propermentalpodcast.com or @propermentalpodcast.

Please, please, please take a minute to leave me a 5 star review!  It really does make a huge difference to my downloads and it’s always lovely to read nice things about my podcast!

If you’d like to support by buying me a virtual coffee just head to www.buymeacoffe.com/propermental.  All support goes straight back in to the pod for websites and hosting and all that stuff and is very much appreciated!

If you need to find support for yourself ao someone in your life, please contact www.hubofhope.co.uk for services in your local area.

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 9 with Andrew Greenway, who is the Project Development Champion at Andy’s Man Club.

Andy's Man Club is a talking group for men to come together and talk about issues or problems they may be facing or have faced.

It was founded in 2016 by Luke Ambler and his mother-in-Law Elaine after Elaine’s son Andy tragically took his own life.

The club started with one location in Halifax and on the very first night 9 men attended. 

They now have 50 clubs all over the U.K with around 900 men attending every week!

I chat to Andrew about how the organisation started and what they do, about how he got involved and we really get in to men’s mental health and why it’s important for blokes to talk about how they’re feeling.

I cannot speak highly enough of Andy’s Man Club and what they are doing up and down the country every single Monday night!

What these guys are doing is nothing short of incredible and hearing about how it all started and where it’s going was a fascinating listen.  So much thought has gone in to how the meetings are structured and how everything is set up.  Every last detail has been covered to help as many men as possible.  Every club in the U.K even meets at the same time, on the same night so you can drop in at any location if you just happen to be passing through.  It really is an amazing set up!

This feels like an important episode and it would be great if you could listen then like and share because you just never know who’ll hear it and maybe start going along to their nearest club and that could literally save a life.

You can connect with AMC via their website www.andysmanclub.co.uk or on social media @andysmanclubuk on all platforms.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 156, where I’m joined by Chris & Stu from Hardcore Listings for a men’s mental health awareness month special!

I reached out to the lads to borrow the Hardcore Listings format and do a Top 5 and they chose to do songs that are good for your mental health.

I also really love how comfortable both Chris & Stu are talking about things like mental health and emotions and all the things that men are always told they don’t speak about.

I also love the way they talk about this stuff, with humour and compassion.

These deeper conversations can be fun as well, it doesn’t always have to be serious and official and I wanted to show that with this episode.

We chat about sadness, grief, mental health and bad days and we chat about happy memories, good times and great songs.

We chat about The Bee Gees, Kae Tempest, Reef, Royal Blood, Sage Francis and the Grease soundtrack and we also chat about feeling your feelings and why music can feel like a hug when you need one.

You can check out all the songs from this episode on this Spotify playlist!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ZqjlJF07aCNBqD4mZab1c?si=3876a98af9cd4c99

I love hanging out with these two idiots!

Follow them @hardcorelisting

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 45!

This week I’m joined by Bethany Rose!

Bethany Rose is a poet, author and educator.

She is a Tedx Speaker and her poem PINK has been viewed 5 million times after being shown on BBC3.

I connected with Beth after watching her Ted Talk which is called ‘Breaking Out if Concrete’ and is about her battle with depression.  It is one of the most powerful talks I’ve ever seen!  It’s a mixture of speaking and performing and it genuinely gives me goosebumps each time I watch it.

Beth suffered a breakdown in 2019.  She fell in to a deep depression and didn’t want to go on living.  After being carried in to her local doctor’s surgery she was told she had lovely smile and invited to try badminton.  It’s this story that inspires her incredible Tedx talk.

This is the longest episode I’ve done so far and maybe the most fun!  Beth and I went absolutely everywhere and we talk about mental health, medication, therapy, breakdowns, suicidal thoughts and Beth tells me why she would really love to turn purple.

Beth is incredibly open and passionate and this chat is both hilarious and vulnerable and I loved being a part of it.

I would definitely watch her Tedx Talk, then listen to our conversation and then leave a lovely 5 star review.

You can learn more about Beth at www.bethanyrosepoetry.com or @bethany_rose_poetry on Instagram.

You can watch her incredible Tedx here Breaking out of concrete: six ways out of depression | Bethany Rose | TEDxLondonWomen - YouTube

And you can buy her book NEON wherever you like to buy your books!

If you would like to chat to me just message me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via my website www.propermentalpodcast.com.

If you would like to buy me a coffee just head to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.  All ‘coffees’ go towards keeping the podcast going and are greatly appreciated.

Please take just a minute to leave a 5 star review if you want to.

If you or anyone you know need to find support in your local area, head to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 188 with Jaxon Feeley, who is a Life and Mindset Coach, motivational speaker and TV personality.

Jax served in the military as an RAF Corporal for 4 years, which included a tour of Iraq, before joining MHP Hindley as a prison officer.

Throughout his life, Jax had been through plenty of mental health struggles but had always managed to pull through and distract himself through his work.  Eventually things got to a point where he had to face these struggles head on and face some things that he had been ignoring since childhood.

Jax came out as transgender and made the decision to transition from female to male whilst still working at the prison.  He served 3 years as a female officer, and 3 years as Jaxon.

Since leaving the prison service, Jax has been on a mission to advocate for the trans community and demonstrate the sort of visibility that he needed to see all those years ago.

In this episode I chat to Jax about his time in the military, some of the mental health struggles he faced through this time and how they ultimately led him to start questioning his gender identity.

We chat about showing up and being vulnerable, asking yourself difficult questions, living authentically, learning how to be your true self and his recent appearance on Channel 4’s Hunted.

Jax has an incredible story and it would have been really easy to make this a whole episode about gender but we had so much more to talk about than that alone!

Follow Jax on social media @jaxryderfeeley

Learn more here: Professional Mindset Coach | Motivational Speaker | Jaxon Feeley

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 90 part 2 with Jay Wheeler, a former soldier and street artist who creates under the name Love Art Global.

After 15 years in the army and multiple tours overseas, Jay was medically discharged with a diagnosis of PTSD.

In part 2, Jay’s story carries on from where we left off in the previous episode.

We chat about Jay discovering art and how that started to bring him back to life.

Jay tells me about his now infamous LOVE tag, the meaning behind it and the effect it’s had on his life and the lives of others.

We chat about tagging around Europe, connecting with others, the importance of self-love and learning to be well again.

We also chat about Fudge, who is Jay’s dog and best friend, and the part that she plays in Jay’s recovery.  And we chat about Jay’s love of the A-Team and he tells me an amazing story about his hero Mr T!

Jay is an incredible man who has been to hell and back several times over but continues to spread love around the world with his art.

It was an honour and a privilege to hear him tell his story and I can’t thank him enough for his time and his friendship.

You can connect with Jay on all social media platforms @loveartglobal

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 42!

My guest this week is Dick Moore!

Dick Moore became a mental health campaigner after his son died by suicide at the age of 21.

He is now is an internationally recognised speaker who visits businesses and schools all over the world to talk to pupils, teachers and parents about the challenges of adolescence and the signs and symptoms of mental health disorders.

Dick has also been an English teacher, rugby coach and spent 20 years as a Headmaster, he is a Mental Health First Aid instructor and Tedx speaker.

On this episode we chat about his work in schools and how the school system can affect young people.  We chat about his family and the tragic death of his son, Barney.  We chat about teenage brain development, the difficulties of being a young person, building emotional resilience and learning to dance in the rain.

You can learn more about Dick and his work on his website www.dickmoore.org.

You can watch his powerful Tedx Talk here:

Dancing or drowning in the rain? | Dick Moore | TEDxExeter - YouTube

You can connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast or my website www.propermentalpodcast.com!

If you’d like to support the podcast by buying me a virtual coffee you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental and I would be incredibly grateful!

Please take 5 mins to leave me a lovely 5 star review and help me get this podcast in as many ears as possible, it really is appreciated and makes all the difference.

If you need to find support services of any kind in your local area, contact www.hubofhope.co.ukl.

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 26!

My guest this week is Jazmin Seddon from The Happy Chilly Dippers!

Jazmin Seddon is the founding member of The Happy Chilly Dippers, a community of cold-water enthusiasts who are supporting wellbeing by embracing nature.

The community meet each day at various Wirral beaches to come together, connect with each other and embrace the water.  They have over 4000 members in their Facebook group and some of their organised dips attract hundreds of dippers.

The group was started by Jaz after she started regular cold-water dips to help her with some physical and mental health issues she was experiencing at the time and has continued to grow rapidly as more and more people are discovering the many benefits of cold-water therapy.

Jaz and I met up to chat about how the community came to be and where it’s going.  We chat about the benefits of cold water dipping and how connection, community and coming together in nature can benefit all aspects of health and mental health in particular.

It’s a great story and Jaz has really created an incredible community that all help and support each other in ways she never imagined when she started out.

I enjoyed this conversation so much and it was a real pleasure to explore these topics with Jaz.  I want Proper Mental to be a resource for mental health and cold water and community are to topics that keep coming up so it was fantastic to explore them further with someone who is making a real difference by bringing people together.

We recorded this in person, in glorious sunshine, on a hill overlooking the sea and I it was awesome to explore her ideas and hear first-hand where she plans to take this movement.

You can learn more about The Happy Chilly Dippers here:

(4) Happy Chilly Dippers 🌊 | Facebook or @happychillydippers on Instagram.

You can connect with me about anything podcast related on all social media platforms @propermentalpodcast and if you like what you hear please take a few minutes to leave me a review and some kind words it would be much appreciated!

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 31, my guest this week is Nemone Metaxas!

Nemone is a  DJ, radio presenter and television presenter/producer. She is also a trained psychotherapist practising in West and Central London.

She started her radio career at Kiss FM before moving to Radio One for the Saturday Breakfast Show and finally finding her spiritual home at BBC 6 Music.

She is renowned for her forensically researched interviews with Hollywood actors, global music stars and comedians, all of whom come under the same thoughtful and reflective microscope.

Always having the intention to build on the psychology degree she gained as an undergraduate in Manchester, she went back to college in 2013, studying part-time alongside being a mum of two and broadcasting weekly. Six years later she gained her MA in Psychotherapy and Counselling, earning a distinction in her research project.

Over the years, she’s thrown back the curtain on the lives of Bono, REM’s Michael Stipe, Johnny Depp, Eric Cantona, James McAvoy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and countless others, many of whom welcomed the chance to return to her shows over the years.  And now she can add me to that impressive list of conversations!

Nemone and I sat down to chat about all thing’s music.  How it can soothe us, heal us and make us feel a little better when we need it to.  We also chat about Nemone’s work as an integrative psychotherapist and how she uses the power of music in mindfulness, grounding and sleep.

You can follow Nemone on across social media @nemonemetaxas and connect with her via her website www.nemonemetaxas.com.

If you’d like to connect with me about this episode or any others then @propermentalpodcast on all socials is great with Instagram probably being the best.  You can email me at www.propermentalpodcast.com.

I love reviews and I would love you too if you could leave me 5 stars and a few kind words!

If you need to seek support, you can find services close to you by visiting www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 132 with Michelle Thomas who is a writer and the author of My Sh*t Therapist and Other Mental Health Stories.

One day Michelle started crying at work and couldn’t stop.  She would end up spending the next two weeks in bed and would eventually have to leave her job.

As part of her recovery journey, she started medication and started going to therapy and began looking at different parts of her life that had impacted on her mental health and contributed to her being unwell.

She wrote about this process and her experience with mental illness and bad therapists in her book and in this episode, I chat to Michelle about her mental health and how a series of life events all arrived at once and caused her mental state to collapse.

We also chat about medication, self-care, running and how mental illness isn’t always about the extremes but more often about managing in the middle.

I enjoyed this conversation so much!  Michelle has some wonderful insights about mental health and we explore her traffic light system, the good and the bad things about therapy and why it’s important to include everybody in the mental health conversation.

You can find out more about Michelle and her work here: www.michellethomas.org and connect with her on social media @msmthomas.

Her book, My Sh*t Therapist and Other Mental Health Stories, is available everywhere and it’s really good read with loads of useful and amusing ideas and stories about mental health.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 112 with Tanya Marwaha who is the founder of Championing Youth Minds.

Championing Youth Minds provide free, online resources to schools, parents, and young people to help them to understand mental health and problems and what to do about them.

It was started by Tanya after she witnessed first-hand the lack of help and support that is offered to young people by the current education system.

She has created a platform that gives young people a platform and a voice so that anyone who uses it can educate themselves on mental health and wellbeing and share their experiences with other people.

Tanya and I chat about her early experiences with grief would lead to mental ill health problems and long-term chronic pain issues and we chat about how she manages these issues as a young person.

We chat about the need for Championing Youth Minds and why Tanya set it up and we chat about all the wonderful things that she is doing and her plans for the platform in the future.

We also chat about mental health in the South Asian community, attending university during the pandemic and some of the additional challenges that young people are dealing with in regards to their mental health.

Tanya is really making a difference to everyone who is using her platform and it was wonderful to hear all about it!

This is an episode that is worth sharing with any young people in your life or anyone that you know who works with young people and I think it’s really important that more people know about this work.

Learn more here www.championingyouthminds.com and connect via social media @championingyouthminds and @­_tanyamarwaha

*PODBIBLE LISTENER POLL 2022 - VOTE FOR PROPER MENTAL*

POD BIBLE LISTENER POLLS 2022 - VOTE NOW! | POD BIBLE (podbiblemag.com)

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 65 with Natasha Devon MBE!

Natasha is a writer, campaigner and broadcaster who has dedicated her life to promoting positive mental health, body image, gender & social equality.

She tours schools, colleges, universities and events throughout the world, delivering talks as well as conducting research on mental health, body image, gender and social equality.

Natasha is intrinsically linked to the topic of mental health through her work in schools, her writing and her work with charities and organisations and she was appointed MBE in 2015 for her services to young people.

It was incredibly to get to chat to her about mental health and life in general and we really got in to a lot of different topics!

We chat about her work in schools and the role she plays in young person’s mental health by communicating with pupils, teachers and parents.

We chat about advocacy and changes in the mental health conversation, about being ‘woke’, public speaking and anxiety.

You can learn all about Natasha and her work at www.natashadevon.com and connect with her on social media @_natashadevon.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 21!

This week I’m joined by Tom and Sarah from In Earnest!

In Earnest are a band from South End on Sea, consisting of Tom (vocals, electric guitar), Sarah (vocals & keys) and Toby (violin, acoustic guitar). Tom and Sarah write the bulk of the songs and Toby makes them pretty. They mostly write around personal topics such as mental illness, nostalgia and identity, with a view to inspiring people to talk openly about these difficult topics.

They released their self-titled debut E.P last year and followed it up in March of this year with a double A side ‘Your Dog/Good Boy.  They are currently working on a new E.P due in October.

In Earnest are also ambassadors for @myblackdog _co, an online peer to peer chat service that supports people struggling with their mental health.

I had a great chat with Sarah and Tom about the personal reasons behind the band’s advocacy, about how depression can affect the creative process and what it’s like to try and put these sorts of things in to songs.

We also talk about what it’s like to be in a couple and see your partner struggling with mental health issues and how anxiety and depression affect not just the person dealing with these things, but the people around them too.

For obvious reasons I found this one incredibly relatable and I hope you do to!  It’s a really important and powerful conversation and I can’t thank Tom and Sarah enough for their openness and honesty because we really get in to.

I listened to their E.P a lot as part of my preparation for this chat and I’m still listening to it a lot now, they are making incredibly beautiful music and I highly recommend you give them a listen! 

The band were good enough to let me pick a track to add to the episode and I picked Put Me Under and In Between for all the reasons mentioned in the intro. 

The video we chat about during the episode can be watched here:

'put me under' - in earnest (music video) - YouTube

You can download or stream their music on all platforms and find out more about them via their website www.inearnest.co.uk or social media @inearnestband.

You can connect with me on all socials @propermentalpodcast and if you would take the time to leave me a review you would make my day!

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to a very special Christmas episode of the Proper Mental podcast!

Tis the season that not everybody enjoys, for a lot of different reasons.  I wanted to put something out at Christmas that might give someone a little lift if they needed one, even if it’s just for 5 minutes. 

Sometimes 5 minutes can make all the difference.

I reached out to advocates, campaigners, authors, speakers and podcasters and friends and I asked them to record a voice note that might be nice for someone to hear over Xmas.  Some of these people I knew and some I didn’t but all of them are wonderful and inspiring and I was so touched by the response. 

You’ll be hearing from Chris Young, Laura Belbin, Shocka, Natasha Devon, Hannah Phillips, Yvette Caster, Natasha Rae, Tatton Spiller, James Whithey, Gabriel Nathan, Eva Echo,

I’ve put them all together here in this episode.  There are some anecdotes, some advice, some kind words or useful ideas.  You can listen in one go or dip in and out when you want to. 

It might help if you’re not really in the mood for Christmas and if you love this time of year, then it will inspire you to love it even more.

I reached out to a bunch of strangers and asked them to leave a supportive message for a different bunch of strangers and all these people said yes. 

That truly is a sign that you are not alone and to me, it’s the true spirit of Xmas.

There are so many support services that stay open and available during the Xmas period, please reach out if you need to. 

Please talk to someone if you need to.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, head to www.hubofhope.co.uk.  There’s a link in my bio.

A huge thank you to everyone involved in this episode and a huge thanks to you, for listening!

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, in whatever shape or form that needs to take for you, and all the best for the New Year.

Here are some more links that might help:

www.hubofhope.co.uk

Useful contacts - Christmas and mental health | Mind, the mental health charity - help for mental health problems

My Black Dog | Free Online Mental Health Chat Support

***************************************************************************

VOTE FOR PROPER MENTAL IN THE POD BIBLE MAGAZINE LISTENER POLLS HERE:

POD BIBLE LISTENER POLLS 2023 - VOTE NOW! | POD BIBLE (podbiblemag.com)

***************************************************************************

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £5 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and help to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 12 with Dr Emilia Thompson, a PhD Qualified Nutrition Consultant, University Lecturer and Bikini Competitor.

She is a Registered Nutritionist with the Association for Nutrition (RNutr Sports / Exercise), Lecturer and Educator in Sports Nutrition and qualified Life Coach. She has a BSc degree in Sports Biomedicine, an MSc in Sport and Exercise Nutrition and a PhD in Exercise Physiology.

As well as being a PhD Qualified Nutrition Coach, Emilia is a former bodybuilding competitor so she knows first-hand the complexities of food and our relationship with it. 

We talk about disordered eating and common behaviours around food and really get in to where some of these negative behaviours come from and the thought processes behind them. 

Emilia goes in to her coaching process and how she begins to help her clients unpick and unpack how they feel about themselves and how that reflects how they think about food.

How you think and how you feel can have a massive impact on how you eat and food can be used to cope with or to deal with, any number of mental health related problems.  Emilia’s approach goes so much deeper than food.  She has a complete holistic approach to all facets of health and we chat about how what you’re feeling affects what you’re eating and vis versa.

We chat about the importance of knowing yourself and understanding your values.  We chat about meditation, gratitude, self-talk and loads of other powerful concepts that you probably never thought related to your diet but are actually completely linked to your diet and in turn linked to all aspects of health.

I asked Emilia some big questions and the amount of knowledge she had at her fingertips, ready to go, was staggering.  Her approach to her work and her clients has such an incredible level of depth to it and although we talk a lot about nutrition, her methods could be applied to any aspect of mental health.

It’s a great listen and I definitely took a lot away from the conversation and I’m sure you will too!

You can connect with Emilia via social media @emiliathompsonphd or for education via @eiq_nutrition.

Her website is www.emilia.fitness

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 99 with Ian Winwood, an author and journalist who has spent over 30 years writing for Kerrang!, NME, the Daily Telegraph and countless other publications.

His time spent in and around the music has given him an incredible insight into the lives of musicians, bands and rock stars both on and off stage.

His recent book ‘Bodies’ explores the music industry and the rock n roll lifestyle and how this way of life impacts mental health.

In this episode, Ian and I chat about the world of music, the type of people it usually attracts and why it seems to be such a breeding ground for mental illness and addiction.

Ian tells me all about the bands he has met and written about over the years (Frank Turner, Biffy Clyro, Metallica, Yard Act, Green Day) how the different ways that working in music affects mental health and how bizarre behaviour and serious addiction issues are completely normalised and, more often than not, celebrated.

We chat about the process of setting out to write the book and what he discovered along the way and we also chat about Ian’s own experiences with mental ill health and how he was able to blend in perfectly within the dysfunctional world of rock and roll excess.

Bodies is one of the best books about music and mental health that I have ever read and I can’t recommend it highly enough!

It was such a pleasure to hear all about it from Ian who was incredibly engaging and generous with his time.  You can connect with him on social media @ianwinwood1.

You can read an extract from Bodies here : Read an exclusive extract from Ian Winwood's 'Bodies: Life And Death in Music' (rollingstone.co.uk)

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 79 with Dr Rosalind Watts, a clinical psychologist who was the clinical lead on the Depression Study, which compared Psilocybin with a standard anti-depressant medication.

The study was featured in the documentary ‘Magic Medicine’ which is currently streaming on Netflix.

Dr Watts has been named as one of the 50 Most Influential People in Psychedelics as well as one of the Top 16 Women Shaping the Future of Psychedelics.

Rosalind is also the founder of the ACER Integration community which aims to provide education and connectedness after psychedelic experiences and uses nature as a way of connecting deeply to the self and to others.

Ros and I chat about the trial process from selecting the patients, supporting them during the experience and what the data showed afterwards.

We chat about psychedelics in general, how they might work and where this area of mental health support is currently up to and we chat about mental health, environment, community and mother nature.

This is a wonderful episode and it feels like, not only one of the best but one of the most important episodes that I’ve recorded.

It’s certainly a personal highlight and Rosalind was just so lovely to chat to!

You can follow Dr Watts on social media @drrosalindwatts or @acerintegration.

You can learn more about her work via her website www.drrosalindwatts.com

You can watch her Ted Talk here: Can Magic Mushrooms Unlock Depression? | Rosalind Watts | TEDxOxford - YouTube

The BBC documentary about the trial is available on the iPlayer here: BBC Two - The Psychedelic Drug Trial

You can vote for Proper Mental at the MH Blog Awards on this link! 

MHBA'22 Online Voting | SurveyPlanet

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 30!

I’m joined this time around by Brent Draper!

Brent is a MasterChef Australia contestant, father, husband and mental health advocate.

He made the news all around the world earlier this year after leaving MasterChef Australia mid-way through a season to protect his mental health.

There is a moment where Brent raises his hand during a show and tells the judges and his fellow competitors that he needs to go home and it is one of the most moving and relatable bits of television that I’ve ever seen.

As a former Boilermaker, Brent was chasing his dreams of being a chef and as he moved through the MasterChef process a lot of things started to build up and really affect his mental health until he felt the need to leave.

Brent’s story is in an unusual setting but the story behind it is very common and I think a lot of people will recognise themselves in his story.

We chat about getting stuck in a rut and changing careers, we chat about men’s mental health and the idea of masculinity and we chat about the build up to Brent leaving the show and what happened next.

Brent is such a lovely guy and is story is brave and moving and really, really common.  He happened to be on TV but the thoughts and feelings he experienced are so very human and I think a lot of people will relate to this episode.

You can follow Brent’s journey on Instagram @brentdraper_ or connect with him via his website www.brentdraper.com.au.

If you would like to keep up to date with his van adventures you can subscribe to his YouTube channel here Brent Draper - YouTube

You can catch up with me on all socials @propermentalpodcast or via my website www.propermentalpodcast.com. 

Please take 5 minutes to review this episode or any others you might have listened to!

If you need to seek support, you can find services close to you by visiting www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 82 with Gary Mansfield who is an artist, curator and host of The Ministry of Arts podcast.

In his early twenties, Gary was sentenced to 14 years in prison after £4.2 million worth of heroin was planted in the boot of his car.

While serving his time Gary joined an art class and it would completely change the direction of his life.

He wrote to several high-profile artists while still inside, many of which wrote back and mentored him through the creative process and helped him to find his own style.

Gary started a fine art degree on the day he was released and is now a well-known and respected artist in his own right.

Gary’s work often centres around identity, Empathy and time and we chat about these themes.

We chat about how Gary wound up in prison and we chat mental health, the prison system and using art and creativity as an agent for change.

Gary’s passion for art is infectious and it was a real honour to hear him talk about his life and his work.

I also highly recommend his podcast, Ministry of Arts, where Gary chats to a who’s who from the art world and a few names you might recognise from this podcast too.

You can follow Gary on social media here @mizogart and via his podcast page here @ministryofartsorg

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 72 with Matt Stocks, who is a presenter, DJ, author and Podcaster.

Matt Started out on Kerrang! Radio before launching his podcast Life in the Stocks which features in-depth and candid interviews with a huge range of creatives from across different fields. 

He also DJ’s all over the country, tours with some incredible bands and hosts regular Q&A live events with the like of Paddy Considine and Dirty Sanchez.

Matt lives a very unconventional life and it was awesome to chat to him about living life on his own terms.  He has built a life for himself where he gets to do what he loves while meeting and working with his musical hero’s and that comes with plenty of downs as well as the more obvious ups! 

We chat about his experiences with mental health, the beauty in connecting through conversations, living free and how he went full gonzo and channelled his hero Hunter S. Thompson when writing his first book during the pandemic.

It was such a pleasure to chat to Matt!  He is the definition of authentic and a really lovely guy.  His podcast has been a huge influence on Proper Mental and it was a podcasting highlight for me to chat to him about the power of deep and meaningful conversations.

Matt’s new book, Life In The Stocks: Volume Two: Veracious Conversations with Musicians & Creatives, is out now and you can grab a copy in all the usual bookshops.

You can follow Matt on Instagram @mattstocksdj and his podcasts ‘Life in the Stocks’ and ‘Stoke the Fire’ are available on all podcast platforms.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 119 with Professor Rory O’Connor, who is an author, speaker and educator who has spent 25 years working in the field of suicide research and prevention.

He also leads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory at Glasgow and is one of the leading suicide and self-harm research groups internationally.

In this episode I chat to Rory about suicide, suicidal thoughts and self-harm.

We look at some of the contributing factors to suicidal behaviour and we dismantle some of the common myths and misconceptions about suicide.

Rory also takes me through his journey in to this work and the personal reasons behind his passion for what he does.

And we chat about the research itself, what that looks like and why it’s can help people to understand something that can be almost impossible to understand.

This is a really important conversation and whichever side of the conversation you are on I think you will relate.

You can follow Rory on Twitter @suicideresearch or Instagram @oconnor_roryc.

His book ‘When It Is Darkest’ is available now and is highly recommended!

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 6 with 3 x CrossFit champion Amanda Allen!

Amanda Allen has qualified for The CrossFit Games 6 times.  On 3 of those occasions, she won.  Her third win (in the 50-55 age group) came just 7 months after having 4 kg of tumours removed from her abdomen.

In 2006 she ran 1000km across Australia for mental health awareness.  She is a cycling and canoeing champion at world level, a state champion mountain biker, a firefighter recruit and the Australasian Grape Spitting Champion!  She is also an author, coach and podcaster.

This time last year she was homeless and living in her van.  She currently resides in a rain forest with her two white wolves.  She has been sober for 16 years and is incredibly open about her struggles with suicidal depression, anxiety and trauma.

Amanda and Tom navigate the time difference to chat about depression, CrossFit, nature, rituals, meditation, nutrition and loads of other things relating to mental health.  Amanda is just a lovely person! 

Her life to date has been an incredible journey of dizzying highs and crushing lows and it all gets covered during this conversation.  She has been to hell and back on more than one occasion and continues to be a compassionate, caring human being.

She is truly inspirational!

Amanda has her own line of supplements and nutritional products that you can find at www.amandaallen.com.au and if you enter PROPERMENTAL at the checkout you’ll get 10% percent off your order!

You can connect with Amanda on Instagram @amandaunicornallen.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 190 with Philippa Dawson, who is a writer, producer and performer who is also the creator of Character Flaw, a show about her experiences with ADHD and how it’s impacted her throughout her life.

In this episode I chat to Pip about her show, about living with ADHD and how this has impacted her mental health over the years.

We chat about the before and after of diagnosis, her experiences with medication and how different aspects of her identity are wrapped up in her ADHD.

We also about Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, emotional dysregulation and hyper focus and we chat about dealing with depression, forgetting to eat and going to the Edinburgh Fringe.

It was wonderful to chat to Pip about all of this stuff.  Her life and experiences and ADHD all interact in both hilarious and challenging ways and I think a lot of people will relate to that.

Follow Pip on social media for updates, show dates and tickets @characterflawtheplay and @probablypip

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 149 with James McMahon, a journalist and podcaster who spent a long time working at the NME, editing Kerrang! and interviewing pretty much everyone in the music industry.

James has lived with OCD for most of his life, although for a lot of that time he had no idea what it was or how to get help.

In this episode James and I chat about his own particular brand of mental illness, how it showed up and how it’s impacted his life over the years.

We chat about the support group he attends and the importance of community and relatability and we chat about how mental illness impacts the people around us.

We also chat about getting well and trying to stay there, empathy and what it’s like to have too much of it, Joe Rogan, Twitter, and the state of the world in general.

I’m a big fan of James’ podcasts and I was an avid reader of the NME during the era that he was there so it was really cool to chat to him!

Follow him on Twitter@ or Instagram @

His website is www.jamesjammcmahon.com

His Substack is Spoook - the Substack of James McMahon | Substack

The James McMahon Music Podcast and Brain Worms are available everywhere.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 57 and my guest this week is Rachel Philpotts, a registered nutritionist, health science writer and mental health expert.

Prior to becoming a nutritionist, Rachel enjoyed a successful 13-year commercial career. However, her career-girl lifestyle caught up with her in her 30s and left her a shadow of her former self. It took total burnout to make her realise something had to change.

It was during this time that she discovered the concept of functional medicine. The simple nutrition and lifestyle change she made transformed her health, and she was inspired to quit the corporate world and retrain. 

She is now the founder of re:Nutrition, an online nutrition and lifestyle medicine clinic that helps other stressed-out career women to improve their mood naturally.

Rachel and I chat about all thing’s nutrition and lifestyle medicine.  We cover hydration, protein, caffeine and alcohol and how these things affect our mood.  We also chat about self-care, community and connection and Rachel takes me through her process of putting all these things together.

You can learn more about Rachel and her work via her website www.re-nutrition.co.uk or via social media @re_nutrition.

Rachel also writes for BBC Good Food which you can find here: Rachel Philpotts - BBC Good Food

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 87 with Ben West who is a mental health activist, campaigner, speaker and author.

Ben was only 17 when he lost his younger brother to suicide.  This event has driven him to become one of the most active campaigners in the U.K.

He has raised thousands of pounds through his Walk to Talk project and regularly speaks at schools and events to raise awareness about mental health.

Most recently Ben has been calling for change in the way that the education system deals with the mental health of students.  He is working towards making mental health first aid training a compulsory part of teacher training and his petition is currently up to 300,000 signatures.

Earlier this year Ben published his first book titled ‘This Book Could Save Your Life’ which details his journey and everything he has learned about mental health along the way.

Ben and I chat about dealing with grief, the stigma around suicide, dealing with burnout and making changes in schools and universities.

You can connect with Ben on social media @iambenwest and read more about his activism and campaigning via his website Ben West - Mental Health Campaigner

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 113 with Alex Holmes, who is a mental health consultant, author and podcast host.

Alex started to experience anxiety and panic attacks whilst at work but at that time he felt that he couldn’t talk to anyone about what was happening.

After carrying the weight of this in silence for some time, he eventually went to therapy and as he began to get a better understanding of himself, he set out to explore his experience, and the experiences of others, with his podcast, The Time to Talk Sessions.

Alex is now a well-known and respected voice in the conversation around mental health and his work focuses on the ways that boys and men can achieve better mental and emotional health.

His book, Time to Talk: How Men Think About Love, Belonging and Connection, was published in 2021.

In this episode I chat to Alex about growing up and how society’s view of what a boy should be would go on to affect him as a man.

We chat about men, masculinity, and some of the potential reasons behind the shocking statistics around men’s mental health.

We also chat about self-awareness, emotional freedom, going to therapy and the wizarding world of Harry Potter and how it relates to mental wellbeing.

I’m always interested in anything that Alex is involved with and I absolutely loved his book so it was a real pleasure to chat to him and explore his work and hear the story behind it!

You can connect with Alex on social media @byalexholmes or via his website Alex Holmes | Mental Health Consultant

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 127 with Sam Delaney, a journalist and broadcaster whose work has featured in Guardian, Big Issue, Talk Sport and many others.

He is also a podcaster and an author and I reached out to Sam after reading his recent book, Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health without the Bollocks.

It’s a great read and I can’t recommend it highly enough!  It was great to chat to Sam about his work in the media and why he started writing about his mental health.

We talk about feelings and emotions and how it’s easier to drink them away rather than actual feel them.  We also talk about why that strategy doesn’t work very well at all!

We chat about Sam’s struggles with addiction and how he got sober and we chat about the impact that his childhood and lad culture had on his mental health as he got older.

We chat about boozing, anxiety, looking out for your mates and going to therapy.

It’s a really open and honest conversation between two blokes who both had to learn to talk about this stuff the hard way and it was a lot of fun to be a part of!

You can connect with Sam on Twitter @DelaneyMan or Instagram @theresetsam and links to everything is does can be found at www.samdelaney.co.uk

Sort Your Head Out (Mental Health Without the Bollocks) is available now in all bookshops.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 122 with Joanna Fortune, who is a Psychotherapist specialising in the parent-child/adolescent relationship. 

She is the author of 4 best-selling books 15-Minute Parenting (0-7 years; 8-12 years and teenage years) and Why We Play and hosts her own podcast, 15-Minute Parenting.

She is also a TEDx speaker and regularly contributes to a variety of print media outlets.  

In this episode I chat to Joanna about therapy and learning to explore our behaviour through self-inquiry.

We chat about emotions and feelings and how we can learn to explore these things with our children in a way that will help them as adults.

We also chat about play and its importance in looking after our mental health and how we can bring more play in to our busy, modern lives.

We chat about parenting, building self-esteem, boredom and how to work on emotional fluency.

I got so much from this conversation!  It’s not just for parents and so many of the things we get in to here could help you to understand the human experience and how childhood impacts us as adults.

You can connect with Joanna via social media @joannafortune or via her website www.solamh.com.

You can watch her Tedx talk here: Social Media - The Ultimate Shame Game? | Joanna Fortune | TEDxHa'pennyBridge - YouTube

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 125 with Sally Orange, who is an endurance runner, mental health campaigner and speaker.

She holds 11 Guinness World Records, has ran over 70 marathons and has completed 22 years’ exemplary service in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Physiotherapy Officer. This included an operational tour of duty in Afghanistan.

She captained the first British female team to complete the relentless Race Across America, the world’s toughest cycle race and has also ran the toughest footrace on earth, the Marathon des Sables. 

And she’s also cycled the length of New Zealand, swam the English Channel relay and skied 250km across the largest plateau in the Arctic Circle.  Most of which she has done dressed as various pieces of fruit to start stigma busting conversations about mental health.

In this episode I chat to Sally about her first marathon at the age of 34, why she started running and how it led to these adventures.

We talk about her own life long mental health challenges and how she balances looking after herself with taking part in these endurance events.

We also talk about fancy dress and starting conversations, her 22 years in the Royal Army Medical Corps and how to dig deep when you need to.

It was amazing chatting to Sally about her adventures and equally amazing to hear the mental health story behind them!

You can follow her on social media @sallyorange and learn more about her future adventures on her website www.sallyorange.com.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Running Fundamentals is available now at www.movementrestored.co.uk/programs

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 166 with Tate Smith, who is an award-winning trans activist, consultant and speaker.

Tate started to experience anxiety at high school but this had nothing to do with his gender. 

It was only later on in his teenage years that he became aware of what it means to be trans and was able to start making sense of himself.

In this episode I chat to Tate about anxiety, why it started and how it affects his life.

I also chat to Tate about coming out as trans, how that was received in his workplace and the last few years he has spent working towards becoming his true self.

We discuss stigma, hate and misunderstanding and we discuss joy, freedom and authenticity.

It was also fascinating to get Tate’s perspective on the current men’s mental health crisis as someone who has presented as both female and male

Tate is so wonderfully open about his life and his experiences and it was great to chat, to debunk some myths and look at men’s mental health from a completely different perspective.

You can follow Tate on social media @tatemichaelsmith

Learn more about his activism and consultancy via his website www.tatesmith.uk

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 58 with my guest Natasha Naomi Rea, an actress, author and Bipolar UK ambassador.

Tasha is diagnosed with type 2 Bipolar and has been living with this illness from a young age. 

Her acting credits include Coronation Street and Emmerdale and she is currently writing, producing and staring in her own short film that has mental illness firmly at the centre.

She is also the author of the critically acclaimed memoir ‘Me, Myself and Bipolar Brenda’ and the ambassador for the #SpeakOutLikeBrenda campaign which encourages people to speak their truth about mental health and living with bipolar.

Tasha and I chat about bipolar diagnosis, depression and manic episodes and we chat about powerlifting, meditation and kundalini yoga.

We also chat about the way mental illness is typically portrayed in the media and the negative affects this can have and Tasha tells me all about how and why she plans to change this by writing and making her own shows.

I think that Tasha is truly inspiring.  She is so positive and has a wonderful way of looking at the world.  She is a force of nature and I really enjoyed our conversation!

You can buy her book in all good book shops and read more about it here

HOME | Me Myself & Bipolar Brenda (meandbipolarbrenda.com)

You can read more about the #speakoutlikebrenda campaign here

The power of shared experience #speakoutlikebrenda | Bipolar UK

And the link for Bipolar UK is here

Bipolar UK

You can connect with Tasha on Instagram @memyselfandbipolarnrenda or on Twitter @natasharea.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 152 with Kieran Cunningham, who is an author, climber and mountaineer.

After being diagnosed with Bipolar 1 while at university, Kieran spent a decade travelling around the world trying to figure out what he wanted to do and how he was going to live with this diagnosis.

Along the way he found that climbing was the perfect way for him to find peace and manage his illness.

Eventually he landed in Italy where the mountains and local climbing community helped him to keep well but that changed when Covid hit and Italy became one of the first countries to lock down.

In Kieran’s book ‘Climbing the Walls’ he writes about what it was like to be trapped inside, away from the mountains, on his own and feeling his mental state drift towards mania while rapidly running out of medication.

In this episode I chat to Kieran about being diagnosed with a mental illness, at a young age and at a time when no one was talking about bipolar.

We chat about how bipolar has impacted him throughout his life, his love of climbing and how it helps his mental state and we chat about his time in Italy that led to him writing the book.

We chat about shame, stigma, nature, travel and all sorts of other stuff.

Climbing the Walls is available in all good book shops and you can follow Kieran on Instagram @kieranjamescunningham.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 145 with Jeremy Thomas, who is an author, public speaker and podcast host.

Jeremy has had a really exciting life and a lot of this is down to him living a big chunk of it with undiagnosed manic depression, a condition that is now known as bipolar.

He started off as a plugger for Decca Records in the 70’s working with the likes of Thin Lizzy and Al Green before moving away to start his own label.

It was around this time that Jeremy fell in to a deep depression that took him to the brink of suicide.  The bounce back was even more severe and for a long time Jeremy would experience bouts of undiagnosed mania and his lifestyle become more and more extreme.  It would be sometime before he was able to get help and would eventually be diagnosed with manic depression.

In this episode Jeremy takes me through his life from boarding school to the music business, and on to New York and 3 years on a Greek island.  This story takes in armed guards, a Lordship, bankruptcy and a lot of excess!

Jeremy credits attending AA and getting sober along with medication and diagnosis as the turning point and through all this is has amassed a huge amount of insight in to mental illness.  One of his talks is titled ‘How to stay sane in an insane world.’

He also hosts the Shed Talks podcast where he speaks to some incredible guests about their lives and experiences.

It was a lot of fun chatting to Jeremy and I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Find out more at Informative, Entertaining Good Mental Health Talks with Jeremy Thomas (jeremythomastalks.co.uk)

Follow him on social media @jeremythomastalks

Shed Talks is available on all podcast platforms!

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 161 with Adam Bloom who is a multi-award-winning stand-up comedian and writer.

Adam has made national TV appearances in Britain and The U.S. and has also ghost-written for 50 comedians.

Adam has a diagnosis of Bipolar and in this episode, we chat about his experiences with hypomania which is the less extreme part of bipolar and very different to hyper mania.

We chat about getting into comedy and the art of writing funny stuff, we chat about the mental impact of becoming successful at a young age and we chat about stress, anger, medication and all sorts of other fascinating things.

Adam is often described as the comedian’s comedian and here we also talk about why that’s important to him and how he measures success.

His book, Finding Your Comic Genius: An in-depth guide to the art of stand up is out now and is a wonderful guide to the mechanics of writing comedy and we chat about that in this episode too!

I reached out to Adam after hearing him mention hypomania on another podcast.  It’s not something that has come up on Proper Mental before and it was wonderful to hear about Adam’s experience.  He was absolutely lovely to chat to!

Hi book is available on Amazon here: Finding Your Comic Genius: An in-depth guide to the art of stand-up comedy: Amazon.co.uk: Bloom, Adam: 9798859382385: Books

You can connect with Adam on Instagram @adambloomcomedy or Twitter @adambloomie2.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 18!

My guest today is Dr Punam!

Dr Punam Krishan is an NHS GP in Glasgow, a medical educator and Director of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.  She is also a TV broadcaster on the BBC, a writer and podcast host. 

Her specialist interests also include public health, women’s health and mental health and wellbeing and her passion is to prevent chronic disease through prescribing lifestyle and educating about root cause medicine.

Dr Punam joined me via Zoom to talk, amongst other things, about medication.  I wanted a guide through this conversation as there is a lot of misinformation around the topic and it does invoke some strong opinions.

I wanted to outline the basic information about medication and break down some of the stigma to give anyone listening the information they need to make an informed decision.

It’s not a recommendation or promotion, just a discussion with someone who has over a decade of experience in general practice.  The idea being, that once you have all the information, you can make the right choice for you regarding using medicine for your mental health.

It’s a great conversation and as well as medication we also talk about our own experiences with mental health and why the statistics seem to be moving in the wrong direction.  We chat about juggling family and modern life, life style medicine, self-care and the importance of “mental health snacks”.

If you follow Dr Punam on social media, you will know how busy her life is.  She is a Mum and a Wife as well as a doctor, she sees over 30 patients a day when in clinic and balances this with her television commitments, newspaper articles and a podcast!  I was so grateful to her for giving me an hour of her time on a precious weekend and it just shows how passionate she is about mental health and how committed she is to her work.

You can connect with Dr Punham via Instagram @DrPunamKrishan or Twitter @DrPunamKrishan.

Her podcast, The Medic Mum, is available on all podcast platforms.

If you would like to connect with me about this episode or any others then @propermentalpodcast on all social platforms is a good place to start.

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 144 with Eva Echo, who is a trans rights activist, writer and public speaker.

It took Eva a long time to figure out who she was and learn to live as her true self and this had a hugely negative impact on her mental health from a young age.

In this episode Eva and I chat about what it’s like to be transgender and she guides me through some of the current challenges that gender diverse people are dealing with on a daily basis.

We chat about how and why she became a campaigner and the importance of education and understanding in the work that she does.

We also chat about the journey she has been on with her own identity and the mental health struggles that ran parallel to that through her life until she was able to authentically be her true self.

We chat about compassion, language, acceptance and coming out and we chat about what makes a good ally.

I’ve followed Eva for some time and her work has been a really valuable resource for me to learn about the trans community so it was really lovely to meet her properly and really explore the conversation around gender and identity and the role of mental health within that.

You can follow Eva on Instagram @evaech0

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 10 with Paul Mort!

Paul Mort is a husband, father, podcaster, international speaker and the UK Master coach of the year for 2020 and 2019.  He is the author of two bestselling books, Unstoppable and Paul Mort Will Save Your Life.

In December 2014, after building a successful business and moving to Marbella, Paul ended up Suicidal.  Crippled by bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety as well as being 4 stone overweight and exhausted. 

He found himself standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to end it all.  His wife stood in front of him and talked him out of it.

Since then, he’s managed to dramatically transform his entire life.

He set upon seeking out the world’s foremost experts to help him fight for his life and now Paul spends his time coaching men and women around the world to reclaim their power, take control and find inner peace and direction.

Through his personal experiences and results, his book, videos, world class coaching and keynote speaking, he’s been able to have inspired thousands of men to do the same and get their shit together for their business and their families.

He has spoken on stages both big and small across Europe and America educating and inspiring thousands of people to level up their lives and upgrade their mindsets without burning out. 

And now he’s doing the same on The Proper Mental Podcast!

A few weeks ago, Paul wrote on his Instagram story that he had a space to be on a podcast so I fired him a message and couldn’t believe my luck when he responded!

This is a huge conversation!  Paul dropped so much knowledge that at times I almost struggled to keep up!  We chat about his story and how he ended up on that cliff, we chat about mental health and why he thinks so many people are struggling and the importance of routines and taking control.

You can connect with Paul on social media @paulmort1 or via his website www.paulmort.uk his newest book ‘Paul Mort will save your life!’ is out now via Audible.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

The Bloom Building is a progressive and unique concept that’s rewriting the rules around how the worlds of culture, community, social action and mental health can flourish together.

There are several organisations all holding space under the same roof, working together and making a difference with a strong focus on community, creativity, wellbeing and empowerment and these values combined with a collaborative approach and the use of technology and art really feel to me like the future of mental health support.

We got together to record a conversation about mental health support.  It was an incredible conversation with a group of incredible people and to say I left inspired is an understatement and I can’t thank everyone involved for their time and knowledge!

I was joined by Ella from The Open Door Charity, Dave from SceneGraph Studios, Nikki, Charlotte and Kayleigh from Be Well Education, Andy and Ryan from The Convenience Gallery and Rachel from The Positivitree.

We chat about the incredible space at Bloom (the brightest building in Birkenhead!) and how a modern, collaborative approach to mental health support and wellbeing is both changing and saving lives.

We chat about the power of community, connection and self-care and about how education, creativity and empowerment are vital for promoting good mental health and overall wellbeing. 

Incredibly, we talk about virtual reality mindfulness and the importance of embracing technology in the mental health space, and we talk about changing the way mental health is portrayed and supported and we chat about the future of mental health support and what needs to change.

Please have a look around the websites of all the organisations involved in this chat and give them a follow on social media!

www.bloombuilding.co.uk @bloom_building

www.opendoorcharity.com @the-open-door-centre

www.scenegraphstudios.com @scenegraphstudios

htpps://thepositivitree.com @positivitreeuk

htpps://bewelllearning.com @bewelllearning

www.conveniencegallery.org @conveniencegallery

You can connect with me on all socials @propermentalpodcast or www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Please subscribe and leave me a lovely 5-star review as well!

If you need to seek support, you can find services close to you by visiting www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 96 with Ian Roullier and Leonie Schneider from PsyPAN.

The Psychedelic Participant Advocacy Network (PsyPAN) is a non-profit organisation created to connect and empower participants of psychedelic trials and anyone who has received psychedelic therapy.

Ian has suffered from depression and anxiety for most of his adult life and psilocybin has proven to be the most effective treatment for his mental health and to date he has taken part in two psychedelic trials.

Leonie was first diagnosed with depression in 1996 and had not found any long-term relief in almost continuous antidepressant medication or from conventional talking therapies in over 20 years. In November 2019, Leonie was a participant in the second Psilocybin for Depression clinical trial at Imperial College.

They started PsyPAN to ensure everyone gains the maximum potential benefit from the treatment they are being given and to give a collective voice to all participants and help improve participant safety and wellbeing.

In this episode I chat to Ian and Leonie about the mental health issues and lack of effective treatment that led them to participating in psychedelic trials and we talk about the process of signing up, the trial itself and what happened afterwards.

We also talk about the work they are doing with PsyPAN and why it’s so important for them to contribute towards a responsible, ethical and, most importantly, safe psychedelic sector.

Both Ian and Leonie have an incredible insight, not just in to psilocybin as a treatment option, but also of mental health advocacy in general and it wonderful to hear about their experiences and their work.

You can learn more about PsyPAN at their website PsyPAN - Psychedelic Participant Advocacy Network (psypanglobal.org) or via Instagram and Twitter @psypanglobal or Facebook @PsyPANglobal

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 67 and I’m joined by Sanisha Wynter, a mental health advocate and Tedx Speaker and Inclusion Consultant who works in the charity sector and advocates for marginalised people in the workplace.

Sanisha and I chat about her diagnosis of BPD and how she had to learn to talk about it, we chat about how mental health is viewed in different communities and we chat about the extra stigma in the mental health conversation with regards to race, sexuality and gender.

The role that identity plays in mental health is at the forefront of this conversation and it was incredible to hear about Sanisha’s lived experience and route to recovery.

In 2021 Sanisha delivered her Tedx Talk, Vulnerability is Your Superpower, which to date has had over 38,000 views and we talk about everything that comes with advocacy on that scale.

You can watch it here: Vulnerability is your superpower | Sanisha Wynter | TEDxUniversityofBristol - YouTube

It was an absolute pleasure to speak with Sanisha about her life and her work, it’s a deep conversation that covers a lot of important ground and I can’t wait for you to hear it!

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 48!

My guest this week is Stevie Georgina!

Stevie Georgina is a vlogger who chats about arts, crafts & crochet and the power they have when it comes to wellbeing.

She started using crochet and arts and crafts to improve and manage her mental health after being hospitalised in 2017.

Stevie experienced psychosis as a symptom of undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder.  When she was discharged, she felt lost and it was discovering crochet that helped her to get back on her feet.

We chat about how her mental health declined to the point of hospitalisation, we chat about her diagnosis and we chat about her recovery and the role of crochet and creativity in this process.

We also chat about the importance of having a project to focus on, taking small steps forward and how creative pursuits like crochet can help us with these things.

Stevie was just wonderful to chat to and this episode was an absolute pleasure to record.  She is a lovely person who has been through a lot and I found her to be inspiring and a lot fun!  I think this one might just inspire you to get the knitting needles and wool out!

You can connect with her via Instagram @steviebythesea or subscribe to her YouTube channel here:

Stevie By The Sea - YouTube

You can get in touch with me @propermentalpodcast on all socials or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

You can support the podcast by buying me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

You can help me to spread awareness and connect with more people by rating and reviewing this episode, or any others on iTunes.

You can find support services in your local area via www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 77 with Bon Collins who is a strength and weightlifting coach, endurance athlete and body neutrality expert.

Bon spent the first 20 years of her life on some sort of diet but it was only when she started to address how she felt about herself that she able to make changes to her health.

She grew up in a cult and it was only after leaving at the age of 18 that she had to start dealing with everything that came with it.  She has had to live with chronic pain issues that, at one point, confined her to a wheelchair and in 2014 she had to learn to walk again.

Now she runs marathons, tackles endurance challenges and lifts weights.  She also empowers others to do the same.

Bon’s story is incredible but it’s her outlook and approach to life that I find truly inspiring!

We chat about her mental health journey from childhood to now, we chat about getting out of a wheel chair to run a marathon, lifting weights and how she learned to love herself.

You can connect with Bon on social media @bemorebon or via her website here:

 Fitness Trainer | Be More Bon (bemore-bon.com)

You can vote for Proper Mental at the MH Blog Awards on this link! 

MHBA'22 Online Voting | SurveyPlanet

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 129 with Richard Mabey, a writer and broadcaster who has been writing about the natural world for more than 50 years and is considered by many to be the father of modern nature writing.

His first book Food for Free was published in 1972 and has never been out of print.  He has written over 30 books since.

At the age of 61 Richard endured a series of life events that led to a breakdown and a period of depression that lasted for two years.  He fell out of love with the natural world and was unable to write.

After some time in hospital, Richard moved to Norfolk to be cared for by friends and slowly started to write about his new surroundings, and his recovery, in real time.  This work became the memoir Nature Cure which was published in 2005.

In this episode I chat to Richard about his early years and how his interest in the natural world began.

We chat about his life and his experiences with mental ill health and we chat about the series of events that led to his two years of depression and how he came back from it.

We also chat about the association between nature and mental health and how we could be in danger of degrading nature in to a form of green anti-depressant.

Richard’s books are available everywhere and you can learn more about his work via his website www.richardmabey.co.uk

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here: www.propermentalpodcast.com

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Paul Fjelrad is an author, sailor and C-PTSD survivor.

His book ‘The Struggle Continues’, co-written with his daughter Natasha, is an intimate and up-close look at how childhood abuse led to a spiral of self-destruction until the reunion of father and daughter starts a journey on the long, hard road back to health.

He uses his writing, speaking engagements and workshops, to break the veil of silence surrounding survivors of abuse and those otherwise battling the daily challenges and stigma associated with mental health. 

Paul and I chat about his “dissent in to madness”, C-PTSD, therapy and the process of reliving the past to write a book.

This episode is incredibly powerful and I knew it was going to be an amazing chat within the first 5 minutes of meeting Paul.

This is a deep dive to say the least!  Paul is open and honest and we leave no stone unturned.  It’s an absolutely fascinating journey and I found Paul to be really inspiring and a really lovely guy!

I also highly recommend his book to anyone regardless of whether you have an interest in mental health or not.  It’s an incredible story that handles a such a complex subject matter in a really different and beautiful way!

You can connect with Paul via Instagram @alutarcontinuar or twitter @ALutarcontinuar.

His website is www.the strugglecontinues.co.uk and Paul has also published blogs via www.joeplumb.org and www.thebookofman.com.

You can connect with me on all socials @propermentalpodcast or via my website www.propermentalpodcast.com.

If you could take a moment to leave me a 5 star review and some kind words it would mean a great deal!

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

If you need to seek support, find services close to you by visiting www.hubofhope.co.uk

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 11 with England International Cricketer Kate Cross!

Kate is an England regular who also plays for Lancashire domestically.

At the age of 16 she was the first female to be accepted into Lancashire's cricket academy and in April 2014, she was one of the 18 women to be awarded the first professional contracts by the England Cricket Board.

A few weeks ago, Kate put an incredibly honest and brave post on her social media about her struggles with mental health.  I asked if she would like to join me on the podcast and she signed up straight away!

This is such a great conversation!  Kate is genuinely passionate about mental health and is so honest and open about her story.  She has done a huge amount of work to unpick what she went through and because of this she is able to have a real insight in to mental health.  There were a couple of points we discuss that really resonated with me and have actually led me to explore them further and begin to gain more understanding about my own mental state.  It’s that type of chat!

We talk about the different ways that anxiety presents itself, the pressures of high-level sport and everything that comes with that.  We also discuss identity and expectations.  We get in to the importance of building a support network, asking for help and being honest with the people around us.

You can connect with Kate on social media

Instagram - @crossy16

Twitter - @katecross16

 She also hosts ‘The No Balls’ podcast which you can follow on Twitter @noballsTCP.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 63, this week’s guest is Susie Weaver, a campaigner, advocate and blogger.

Susie is a passionate advocate for young people’s mental health, in 2019 she launched the S.H.I.T. Tee campaign, with the main message for young people being that it’s ok to feel shit, but it’s a lot more ok if you don’t feel alone.

100% profit from every single sale goes to Young Minds, raising an incredible £35,000 so far and still going strong.

Susie and I caught up to chat about her own experience with depression while at university, the idea behind the S.H.I.T campaign and how celebrities getting on board has helped to spread the positive message further than she ever imagined.

We also chat about learning to love yourself, the positives and negatives of social media and being an ambassador for My Black Dog and the amazing work they do.

You can purchase your own S.H.I.T Tee and join the cause here:  So Happy In Town | S.H.I.T. –

You can follow Susie on social media @sohappyintown

You can learn more about the My Black Dog charity here: My Black Dog | Free Online Mental Health Chat Support

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 140 with Lucy Nichol, who is a writer and mental health campaigner.

Her recent book, Snowflake, takes a deep-dive into some of the most harmful mental health stereotypes and in this episode Lucy and I chat about where these stereotypes come from and the impact that they have.

We chat about Lucy’s own experiences with anxiety and panic attacks and how the conversation around mental health has changed since her teenage years.

We chat about the stigma that surrounds mental health in general but also what the word stigma actually means and how the way we talk to each other matters just as much as what we’re talking about.

We chat language, identity, compassion and some of the wonderful ways that young people are changing and impacting society and we explore some of the reasons why some people are so against that change.

It was wonderful to chat to Lucy, not just about mental health, but about lots of other areas of society that can affect how we think and feel about ourselves and our place in the world.

However, if you are the sort of person that doesn’t like listening to woke, snowflakes having a chat then this probably isn’t the episode for you!

You can connect with Lucy via her website https://lucynichol.com or via social media

Instagram @lucynichol

Twitter @LucyENichol

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 148 with Dr Ben Cave, which is the pen name of a practising general and forensic psychiatrist.

For over 30 years Ben has worked as a prison psychiatrist, community psychiatrist and as a consultant in medium-secure, low-secure and general mental health units.

He is also the author of ‘What We Fear Most’ in which he reflects on a lifetime on the frontline of forensic psychiatry and the extremes of mental illness.

In this episode I chat to Ben about his work, what he does and why he started doing it.

We talk about the more challenging aspects of mental illness and the good and the bad side of diagnosis and we chat about the misconceptions and stigma around mental illness and how that is getting lost in the wider conversation about mental health.

As I’m sure you can imagine, we cover some big topics in this one!  Ben was wonderful to speak to and it fascinating and important to learn about the realities of treating some of the most troubled men and women in society.

You can learn more about Ben and his work via his website ben-cave.com.

Instagram @drbencave

Twitter @DrBenCave

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 160 with The Real Talk Therapist, Tasha Bailey!

Tasha is an author, content creator and psychotherapist who specialises in trauma, self-love and creativity.

In this episode I chat to Tasha about why she decided to become a therapist and some of the different ways that she supports the people she works with.

We chat about the language of therapy becoming more common place and how it’s very easy to learn the words without necessarily doing the work.

And we chat about learning to talk about feelings and emotions, how challenging it can be learn about yourself and why it’s important to build trust with your therapist.

We also have a lovely chat about the E4 show @mafs, what we can learn from watching and why these sorts of shows are so popular.

It was a real pleasure to chat to Tasha about her work.  Therapy accounts on social media can be pretty wild but Tasha really cuts through all that and her content is brilliant so it was great to dig in to all that a bit deeper.

Tasha’s book, Real Talk: Lessons from Therapy on Healing and Self-Love, is out now and available everywhere.

You can follow her on social media @realtalktherapist and connect via her website www.realtalktherapist.co.uk

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

A great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 158 with Ro Bevan from Christmas For CAMHS, a registered charity who provides special Christmas gifts every year for children and young people who are inpatients in child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) wards across the UK over the Christmas holiday period.

Dr Ro Bevan got things started after working on CAMHS wards at Christmas and noticing a huge disparity in the way CAMHS units were treated over the festive period compared to other NHS services for children and young people.

Now Christmas for CAMHS aim to make children and young people who are inpatients over the festive season feel thought-about, special and included

In this episode I chat to Ro about how the charity came to be and the wonderful work that they are doing for young people on mental health wards at Christmas.

We chat about where the idea came from and how it got started and we chat about the logistics of organising and delivering gifts all over the UK and the wonderful volunteers that make this happen.

I think what Ro and the team are doing is incredible!  Please go and see what they are up to and get involved if you can!

Instagram @christmasforcamhs

Twitter @Xmas4CAMHS

Facebook @ChristmasForCAMHS

www.christmasforcahms.org.uk and Donate Here Christmas For CAMHS - JustGiving

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Proper Mental was recently nominated at The British Podcast Awards!

This is the submission clip that I submitted to the judges and below is the description that went with it.

For a completely independent podcast like mine to even be nominated is incredible really and although I didn’t win, I did get to have a day out to London with my wife and on the whole, it was a positive experience and I’m really proud of the nomination.  I’m pretty sure I was the only mental health related podcast at the event which in itself is a wonderful thing!

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

“The aim of Proper Mental is to normalise open conversations about mental health and mental illness.  Some of these are lived experience, some focus on specific diagnosis or an aspect of mental wellbeing and some are just a chat.  

I work hard to include all aspects of mental ill health and additional factors that add to the stigma.  Inclusion and diversity are important to me and I believe that compassion for others and all aspects of mental health is key to the conversations that I have. 

I want to be relatable, to make people feel seen and less alone and I want to create a resource for people to learn about the complexities of mental health.  This isn’t a sad stories podcast and although I’m discussing challenging topics, I don’t want it to be challenging for the listener or the guest.  I always think about how the conversation is helping anyone who listens and I don’t dwell on the hard stuff just for the sake of it.  There is a strong focus on hope and recovery and I’m aware of what can be considered useful or triggering for my listeners. 

My role is simply to make the guest feel comfortable enough to talk.  Creating the space for them to fall into, that’s where the magic happens and I understand when to lean in and when to pull back.  Connecting through stories is a very human experience and having these big conversations, in a relaxed way, can be a powerful thing.”

0:00 – 01:55 Paul Mort is a bestselling author and 2 x Master Coach of the year.  I chat to him about his mental health breakdown that led to a viral video about suicide and the work he does now with men in the mental health space. 

TW: Suicide, substances, strong language.

01:59 – 06:39 Stevie Georgina is a YouTube Vlogger who began making videos about crochet and other arts and crafts as part of her recovery after being sectioned.  She suffered a breakdown due to undiagnosed Type 2 bipolar disorder.  We chat about the importance of creativity and self-expression and how arts and crafts can help us to heal.

06:35 – 10:50 Frank Turner is an English singer/song writer and mental health advocate who recently celebrated a number 1 album.  We chat about his own experience with mental ill health and substance abuse.

TW: Substance abuse

10:54 – 12:50 Brendan Geoghegan and Matthew Riley are the hosts of the LGBTQ+ podcast, Bottoming.  In this clip you can hear Brendan chatting to me about the additional mental health stigma faced by the LGBTQ+ community and the importance of connecting with your therapist.

12:54 – 14:30 Dr Emilia Thompson is a registered nutritionist and women’s coach and we chat about mindset and the role of positive self-talk and how these things impact mental wellbeing.

Welcome to episode 200 with Professor Joanna Moncrieff who is a psychiatrist, author and researcher who is one of the founding members of the Critical Psychiatry Network.

In 2022, Joanna was the lead author of a study that explored the ‘chemical imbalance’ theory of depression and found that no clear evidence that serotonin levels or serotonin activity are responsible for depression.

The study became one of the 400 most shared of the 21 million papers that have ever been tracked and caused great debate throughout the mental health space.

In this episode I chat to Joanna about this research, what it involved and what the findings showed.

We chat about some of the response and criticism to this piece of work and how the chemical imbalance theory came to prominence in the first place.

We talk about some of the other’s factors that could be causing depression if it isn’t in fact serotonin as the research shows.

We also chat about depression, serotonin, anti-depressants, diagnosis and labels and what the future of mental health treatment and support could look like.

Medication is a very personal choice and the aim of this episode isn’t to debate or influence anyone on their views on anti-depressants, just simply to explore this aspect of the mental health conversation because I think that’s important.

Don’t make decisions about your own medication without discussing it with a medical professional.

You can find the original study here: The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence | Molecular Psychiatry

A summary of some of the responses and criticism here:  expert reaction to a review paper on the ‘serotonin theory of depression’ | Science Media Centre

And a response from Joanna to that specific criticism here:  Response to Criticism of Our Serotonin Paper - Mad In America

Joanna’s new book is called Chemically Imbalanced: the making and unmaking of the serotonin myth and it’s out now.

There is loads more information about Joanna’s work at her website https://joannamoncrieff.com

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 68 with Ben Coomber who is a nutritionist, speaker and coach.

He has worked in the fitness industry for 14 years as a personal trainer, coach and nutritionist as well as hosting the Ben Coomber Radio Podcast.

I reached out to Ben after reading one of his social media posts about his experience with depression as a result of long Covid which, at the time of recording, he was just coming out of after 18 months.

Ben is used to being both physically and mentally healthy and it was a big adjustment for him to slow down life in order to heal and recover fully.  Ben has done an incredible amount of research and experimentation in to recovery from long Covid and I think anyone who listens will get a lot out of his experience.

We also chat about his journey in to fitness, learning to slow down, working on the inner stuff as well as the outer stuff and why the gym is not your therapy.

It was brilliant to chat to Ben, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of conversation around long Covid and how it affects Serotonin levels or the actual recovery process and what’s involved.

You can follow ben on social media @bencoomber and find out more about him at www.bencoomber.com.

If you would like to work with Ben you can do so at www.btn.academy and for more about his supplement company go to www.awesomesupplements.co.uk

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 52 and my guest this week is Chris Hemmings!

Chris is a public speaker & workshop facilitator focussing on healthy masculinity.  He is also a trainee psychotherapist and the author of ‘How to be a Man’ a book about masculinity and the damage caused by masculine ideals.

We chat about what it means to be a man and how this causes men to struggle and stops men asking for help.

We chat about the research that Chris has done in this area, about his work in schools with young men and we chat about empathy, vulnerability and owning our mistakes in order to grow.

I have had Chris on my list to contact for months but only recently reached out as I felt this conversation was just too big for me when I started.  I’m glad I waited because I feel like I was able to do it justice and I’m so glad with how it came out!

It’s deep, it’s complex and it’s given me a great deal of inspiration.  As well as being passionate and articulate, Chris is incredibly brave in taking on some of these bigger topics and it was a pleasure to hear what he had to say.

You can learn more about Chris and all of his work via his website Chris Hemmings (chris-hemmings.com) and follow him on Twitter @Hemmch

You can email me via www.propermentalpodcast.com or DM me on Instagram.

You can contribute towards the podcast at www.buymeacoffee.com\propermental

You can make me very happy by leaving me 5 stars and a few kind words in the form of a review!

If you, or anyone you know, needs support in your local area please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 194 with Dr Benji Waterhouse who is a front-line NHS doctor specialising in psychiatry and an award-winning stand-up comedian.

He is also the author of the best-selling medical memoir ‘You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here’ where he has written about his work as a psychiatrist and the stories of the patients he has met along the way.

In this episode I chat to Benji about his book and his work and why he decided to work in medicine’s most mysterious and controversial speciality.

We chat about the process of sectioning someone, the origins of psychosis and delusions and some of the myths around mental illness in general.

We also chat about the impact that working in mental health can have on medical staff and the difficult decisions that have to be made when mental illness accounts for 28% of the overall disease burden but only receives 13% of funding.

We also get in to empathy, burnout, psychedelics and how to deal with a patient who thinks he’s a werewolf.

This episode is a lovely mix of humour and insight and it was fascinating to learn more about the other side of psychiatry!

You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here is a wonderful read and I highly recommend it!

You can connect with Benji on social media @doctor_benjis

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 187 with Chris Baker, who is a mentor, coach and public speaker.

Chris got in to crime at a young age and spent a long time bouncing in and out of prison.  He ended up losing an arm in a motorbike crash while being chased by police and this sent him in to a spiral of depression and self-loathing and he was also sentenced to longer stretch inside.

Chris decided that he didn’t want to keep repeating this cycle and set out to make some changes.  He started reading, working on himself and exploring Adverse Childhood Experiences studies and the links between childhood trauma and repeat offenders.

Now Chris works with prisons, schools and business’ delivering talks about his own experiences to promote resilience and inspire hope.

In this episode I chat to Chris about his early years growing up and how he started to get in to trouble.

We chat about going to prison, why so many people can’t get out or stay out and what needs to change in the prison system, particularly with regards to mental health.

And we chat about losing an arm, losing identity, building resilience, lessons from fitness and making big changes.

You can learn more about Chris and his work at chrisbakerspeaker and follow him on social media @chris_baker_

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 179 with Tim Owen, Mike Palmer and Andy Airey, who are collectively known as the 3 Dads Walking!

Tim, Mike & Andy are 3 dads, bereaved by suicide who have been walking in memory of their daughters, Emily, Beth & Sophie.

In 2021 they walked 300 miles between their 3 homes, to highlight the fact that suicide is the biggest killer of young people across the entire UK.

In 2022 they set off again, this time walking 600 miles, between the parliaments of the 4 nations, petitioning the Government to make suicide prevention a compulsory part of the school curriculum.   They collected over 100,000 signatures for this petition, which prompted a debate in the House of Commons and led to them sitting down with the Prime Minster.

Along the way they have raised more than 1 million pounds for PAPYRUS, a UK charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people.

This year, they will be undertaking the Walk of Hope, covering 500 miles and visiting newly opened offices of PAPYRUS all over the U.K, many of which have been setup thanks to the dads’ fundraising efforts.

They also have a book out any minute now, it’s called Three Dads Walking: 300 Miles of Hope and it’s been written up from diary entries that the dads have been writing throughout their adventures.

What The 3 Dads have achieved over the last few years is nothing short of incredible and this episode is both heart breaking and heart walking and everything in between.

It was an honour to chat to Tim, Mike and Andy.  They speak so openly and warmly and I found our chat incredibly moving but a lot of fun too!

Follow them on social media @3dadswalking and keep update with this year’s campaign via their website www.3dadswalking.uk

Learn more about the incredible work of PAPYRUS here www.papyrus-uk.org

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 153 with Vanessa Cornell, who is a surfer, writer, teacher a messy mum of 5 and the founder of Nushu, an organisation that holds a safe space and creates a supportive environment for those seeking to live authentic, inspired, and joyful lives through the power of true community.

At one point in time, Vanessa had everything that she thought she was supposed to.  She had the perfect family and the perfect life and no idea who she really was. 

This disconnection pushed her to a dark place and she was forced to look at her life, and herself, to work out how to reconnect with herself and the people in her life.

In this episode I chat to Vanessa about the breakdown and the breakthrough that forced her to really look at herself.

We chat about living authentically, showing up, holding space and getting better and we chat about what these things actually mean and how to get started.

I’ve followed Vanessa on social media for some time and her content often gives me pause for thought, so it was wonderful to spend some time with her and learn more about her work and why she does it.

You can follow Vanessa on Instagram @vanessacornell and @nushu.

Her website can be found at https://nushu.com

You can support Proper Mental by signing up to the Patreon community!  It’s £5 a month for early access to episodes as soon as the recording is finished, a monthly Zoom hangout and loads of other behind the scenes updates.

Sign up here: Proper Mental Podcast | Normalising open and honest conversations about mental health! | Patreon

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 16!

My guest today is Tasha Danvers!

Tasha Danvers is a coach, painter, singer and public speaker.  She is also a 2-time Olympian who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Her story is incredible!  At the height of her career in sport, and whilst training for her second Olympics, Tasha fell pregnant and received an insane amount of backlash and scrutiny from people in and around athletics.

Seven months after giving birth to her son, Tasha returned to top flight competition.  She won a silver medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and won a place in the final the following year at the World Championships.

She faced more scrutiny after being selected for the 2008 Olympic squad as some people felt she should not have been chosen.

In 2008, she overcame a series of injuries and the media backlash, to run the fastest race of her life and take Olympic bronze in Beijing.

The scrutiny she faced during this period alongside personal issues and the pressure of an upcoming Olympics in London in 2012 led Tasha in to a period of depression which eventually came to ahead when she attempted to take her own life in 2011.

This story is an incredible series of highs and lows and Tasha takes me through her journey with an openness that is truly inspiring!  Her mindset is an inspiration in itself and her way of looking at depression and mental health is brilliant!

We chat about the loneliness of track sport, the importance of gratitude, the pressure of a games on home soil and the importance of asking for help.

Tasha was just great to chat to!  She is funny and engaging and a lovely, lovely person.  I really enjoyed talking to her and I hope you enjoy listening!

You can connect with Tasha via Instagram @tashatheolympian or Twitter @tashadanvers or via her website www.tashadanvers.com.

Here is the link for her 2008 medal winning run – prepare for goose bumps!

2008 Beijing Olympic Games Womens 400m Hurdles Final - YouTube

While you’re on YouTube you can subscribe to the podcast channel here:

Proper Mental Podcast - YouTube

And here is an article written in 2013 about Tasha:

Tasha Danvers on motherhood, sacrifice and feeling suicidal - BBC Sport

You can connect with me on all social media platforms @propermentalpodcast.  Please leave a review if you have a minute and as always, let me know what you think!

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 198 with Dr Susie Bennett, a psychologist and research fellow at the 'Suicidal Behaviour Research Lab' at the University of Glasgow.

Her work focuses on trying to understand why men are more at risk of suicide and what can be done to help more men access a dignified and meaningful life.

Through this work, Susie has been involved in reviewing two decades of research on male suicide, joining forces with 242 people impacted by male suicide to create an agenda of research priorities for male suicide and asking men who have been suicidal in the past week or year to tell her about the barriers they experience around accessing professional support.

In this episode I chat to Susie about why she got involved in researching such a specific topic and how the work has impacted how she sees the world.

We chat about some of the outcomes from her research and get in to things like the cultural norms of masculinity, gender bias and psychological pain and we chat about emotions, relationships and success and how they impact men specifically.

We also chat about how to move past awareness and just telling men to talk and what needs to change if we want to change the heartbreaking statistics around male suicide.

Susie’s work is fascinating and vital.  It was an absolute pleasure to explore it with her.

This episode is a big one, we cover important things and things that are tricky to talk about but these are the conversations that we need to having and I hope you get a lot out of listening.

On Susie’s website, http://malesuicideresearch.com you can access all of the studies we talk about in this episode as well as all sorts of interesting reports and talks.  Her socials are amazing too @male_suicide_research.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to this BONUS episode of Proper Mental!

This week Tom sits down with his wife Kim to chat about mental health and how it affects the whole family.

Tom chats to Kim about what it was like listening to Episode 7 and we get her side of the story.  They talk about what it’s like to live with someone who is depressed, why it’s important to talk and how she navigated the ups and downs of her husband’s mental health battles.

This is a deep one!  Depression can be all consuming and as much as the person struggling feels like they are drowning, they can also be pulling people around them under.  This chat is a real insight in to watching someone you love suffer.

They also have a laugh with it.  Life has a way of throwing up funny stories and it’s not all doom and gloom!  They also discuss how Tom’s problems brought them closer and by nearly ruining their marriage, actually made it stronger.

One of the main aims of Proper Mental is to be relatable and this is a fascinating look at another side of mental health.

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 89 with Kitty & Alex Tait who are the owners of The Orange Bakery and the authors of Bread Song.

Kitty started to struggle with her mental health around the age 14 to the point where she had to stop going to school.

As well as contact with CAHMS, her family tried all sorts of things to support and distract her but nothing seemed to help until she watched her father, Alex, baking bread.

The process of preparing and baking bread started to bring Kitty comfort and have an incredible impact on her mental health and it wasn’t long before she was sleeping in the kitchen, borrowing oven space from the neighbours and making enough bread to feed the whole street.

This would lead to Alex leaving his job and working with Kitty to launch The Orange Bakery which instantly became a much-loved feature in the local community.

Kitty and Al joined me to chat about Kitty’s mental health struggles from both their perspectives.

We chat about baking and how it became so vital to Kitty’s mental health, we chat about the importance of having a creative outlet, being part of a community and doing nice things for other people.

You can connect with Kitty & Al on social media on any of the following

@the_orangebakery

@kittytaitbaker

@kittys.kits

@breadsong.bakes

Or via their website www.theorangebakery.org

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 181 with Amelia Wrighton, who is the co-founder and CEO of Suicide & Co, a charity that is on a mission to support bereaved individuals and open the conversation around suicide-related grief.

Amelia set up Suicide & Co. with Emma Morrisroe after they met at work and realised that they shared the same experience of losing someone to suicide.

The charity provides one-on-one professional support through talking therapies and a Helpline that is staffed by bereavement counsellors as well as providing all sorts of resources and initiatives to spark conversations and encourage conversations around bereavement from suicide.

In this episode I chat to Amelia about her own tragic loss, the impact it had and how that led to eventually setting up this incredible charity. 

We chat about some of the complexities around this very specific type of grief, about using the right words, the importance of knowing how to have conversations about suicide related grief.

It was wonderful to chat to Amelia, to hear about the incredible work that her team are doing and learn more about how to have difficult but important conversations.

Learn more about this incredible organisation and access support via their website www.suicideandco.org

Follow on social media @suicideandco

PROPER MENTAL LIVE 17 MAY 2024

Tickets here: https://opendoorcharity2.beaconforms.com/form/02ec51d1

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 100 and this week I chat to Rosie Tressler OBE who is the CEO of Student Minds.

Student Minds is a student mental health charity that is working to empower members of the university community to look after their own mental health, support others and create change.

Rosie has worked in several different aspects of the charity sector and in 2019 she was awarded an OBE for services to Mental Health in Higher Education.

In this episode I chat to Rosie about Student Minds, the work that they do and the support that they offer.

We chat about Rosie’s route in to campaigning and all the different things that she has done in the mental health space and we chat about the sort of mental health problems that can typically affect students, people at universities and anyone who is involved in higher education in some way.

We also get in to the importance of collaboration and the need to speak to as many different people as possible and working together to spread awareness and work towards long term, meaningful policy change.

You can learn more about Student Minds via their website www.studentminds.org.uk or on all social media platforms @studentmindsorg

You can follow Rosie on Twitter @rosietressler

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 186 with James McInerney, who is the creator of The Poetry Project.

James started off experimenting with words by writing out his thoughts and feelings to instrumental film scores and he found that expressing himself through poetry helped him navigate his way through depression.

After publishing several books, he launched The Poetry Project with the aim of spreading mental health awareness, throw people in at the deep end and inspire them to think, pause and reflect.

Since his first piece was displayed on a train station platform, the project has grown and James’ words have been displayed by some of the world’s biggest brands and in iconic locations all over the globe.

In this episode I chat to James about his experiences with depression and these experiences led him to poetry.

We chat about the origins of The Poetry Project, how he got it started and how it spread all over the world.

We chat about creativity, self-expression, healthy distraction and why, when it comes to mental health awareness, it can be useful to throw people in at the deep end.

I stumbled across one of James’ poems in a Portland shopping mall last summer and it really was striking to see the word ‘depression’ in big letters on the wall in the middle of a huge shopping centre.  I love anything that takes mental health outside of the usual clinical spaces and it was awesome to chat to James about his work and the impact that he’s having.

You can follow James on social media @poetryproject08 and @millsmc07

Learn more on PROJECTS | James McInerney Poetry

If you would like to watch this episode or any of the others, you can do so by joining the Patreon community at www.patreon.com/propermentalpodcast.  For £3 a month you’ll get early access to any and all episodes that aren’t available to watch anywhere else and you can submit questions for upcoming guests!  You’ll also be helping to support the show and keep it fully independent and ad free.

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

Another great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 84 with Chris Young, who is an author, podcaster and mental health advocate.

Chris spent many years working as a social worker but had to leave his dream job after his mental health declined to the point of crisis on more than one occasion.

During this time Chris would experience long periods of depression, disassociation, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.  He would eventually be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

Chris’ training gives him an incredible insight in to mental illness from the perspective of the patient and the support system and it was fascinating to chat him about both.

We talk about the additional stigma around BPD, the side effects of medication and the difficulties in getting a diagnosis. 

We also chat about the walk the Chris undertook in 2011 where he worked his way around the edge of the U.K, to raise aware about mental illness.

He chose the edge of the country to represent the edge of society where many people with mental health problems feel they are and he undertook his walk without any money and relying on the kindness of strangers.

Chris had some incredible adventures on his journey and his stories really do restore a little faith in how mental illness is viewed by others.

Chris has a podcast called Walk a Mile in My Shoes which is available on all platforms and you can joint the Facebook group here: Walk a Mile in My Shoes | Facebook

You can follow Chris on Twitter @walkamileuk and his book about his walk ‘Walk a Mile: Tales of a Wandering Loon is available in all good book shops!

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 69 with Gavin Thorpe and Ben Akers from Talk Club!

Talk Club is a talking and listening club for men that is also described as a behaviour-changing movement.

It all started after one of the Founders, Ben Akers, lost his childhood best friend to suicide in 2014.  Struggling to process his grief, Ben set out to make ‘Steve’, a documentary about male mental health.

Talk Club came from the process of making the film and everything that Ben learned along the way about men’s mental health.

For this episode I chat to Ben and fellow co-founder Gavin about making the documentary and how it led to the formation of Talk Club.

Talk Club sessions are based around the question ‘How are you, out of 10?’ and then explaining why.  Gav and Ben chat about the importance of this leading question and how what they do works.

We also chat about men’s mental health in general and the terrible suicide statistics that come with it and we chat about keeping mentally fit, finding the words to talk and learning how to listen and support other men.

Talk Club have a big fundraising project coming up next month called Miles for Miles and if that is something you’d like to get involved in then all the details are on Home – Talk Club (wetalkclub.com) and you can get all the latest news via social media @talkclubuk

You can watch Ben’s incredible documentary ‘Steve’ here STEVE DOCUMENTARY

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com  or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 59 with my guest Michael Byrne who is the Founder of LETs (Lived Experience Trauma Support) and one of the UK’s leading Mental Health speakers.

Michael established LETs after overcoming many traumatic events in his life including child abuse, the violent murder of his father, losing twins through miscarriage and surviving The Clutha disaster in 2013.

He suffered a breakdown in 2017 and was diagnosed with C-PTSD and it was after his journey to recovery that he founded LETs with the aim of improving Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace.

Michael has a mental health story that has to be heard to be believed and the fact that he has managed to turn it in to such a positive is incredible and inspirational!

We chat about Michael’s life and how he dealt with hard times by pretending they weren’t happening and we chat about why that seems to be the preferred way for men to deal with these things.

We talk about his diagnosis of C-PTSD and how he manages that, his work with LETs and how he has trained his brain and switched his mindset to focus on the positive.

You can learn more about Michael and LETs via the website here:

Lived Experience Trauma Support Home Page

You can buy Michael’s book here:

Don't Believe Your Brain!: Your 9 Step Guide From Trauma To Triumph: Amazon.co.uk: Byrne, Michael: 9798647210197: Books

You can hear Michael talking about more of his story on the BBC here:

BBC Radio 4 - Life Changing, We said we’d never talk about it again

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental.

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!

Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 23!

This week I’m joined by Kate Lucey!

Kate Lucey is a journalist, editor and author.  Her recent book ‘Get a Grip, Love’ is a hilarious, honest story about living with depression, and how-to self help guide to recovering from a mental health illness.  Or as Kate says “a book about being a sad twat”.

Kate is formally the Editor at Cosmopolitan.co.uk and has written for the likes of Vice, Guardian and The Sunday Times Style.  She also writes a regularly column about mental health for Metro.

Having lived with depression for about 6 years, Kate has tried “many, many things to ignore it, fix it, make it go away and try to make herself feel better” and realised that a lot of the advice offered is not only nonsense but often offered by people who have no business offering it!

I really enjoyed her book and found it to a very useful and relatable resource for anyone with an interest in mental health and mental illness.  It’s also very funny!

Kate and I chat about receiving useless advice, how it feels to speak openly about dealing with depression and how it affects friends and loved ones.  We also chat about magic mushroom retreats, the importance of ice cream and the healing powers of trashy television.

I really enjoyed her book and found it to a very useful and relatable resource for anyone with an interest in mental health and mental illness.  It’s also very funny!

You can grab a copy here if you’re interested:

Get a Grip, Love: 2021’s hilarious, honest story about living with depression, and how-to self help guide to recovering from a mental health illness: Amazon.co.uk: Lucey, Kate: 9780008401054: Books

You can connect with Kate on Twitter @KateLucey_ or Instagram @katelucey.

You can connect with me on all socials @propermentalpodcast and if you could leave me 5 stars and a kind review, I would be incredibly grateful!

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

If you need to seek support, find services close to you by visiting www.hubofhope.co.uk

Welcome to episode 157 with Reed Amber, who is a proud sex worker, educator, anti-shamer and activist.  She is also co-founder of ComeCurious, a leading channel about sex and relationships and co-host of the award-winning F**ks Given podcast. 

Reed describes herself as an anxious child and she became aware of her mental health from a young age.  In this episode Reed guides me through her early experiences that led to her being diagnosed with OCD.

We chat about the different ways that OCD has affected Reed over the years and all the things she’s tried to manage it.

We talk about being addicted to drugs and phones, body image, resisting medication, different types of therapy, breakdowns and break throughs.

We also chat about sex and Reed’s work around anti-shaming.  Shame and guilt are both words that are far too often associated with both sex and mental illness and it was wonderful to explore this complicated topic with Reed.

I loved chatting to Reed!  She was a lot of fun and has some fascinating insights to s*x and mental illness.

You can connect with reed on social media @reedamberx and subscribe to her Only Fans here: Reed OnlyFans

You can find Come Curious here Come Curious - YouTube and follow @comecurious

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

An great way to support the show and spread the word is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from.

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to episode 109 with Mel Bradley, who is the founder of Men Against Mountains and a men’s mental health advocate.

Men Against Mountains is an online platform for conversations and connections around men’s mental health and everything that comes with that topic.

Every Sunday, Mel hosts The Sunday Summit, a live conversation in which a different man each week joins her to tell his story and share his experiences.

Through these live sessions Mel has reached an incredible number of men and her page has connected people from all walks of life and many friendships and support networks have started from the conversations that she has.

This week I chat to Mel about her own mental health experience and where her passion for helping others comes from.

We chat about setting up her page and how she holds space for others in a way that allows them to be vulnerable and inspire others to do the same.

We also chat about the importance of asking for help, sharing stories and we get in to some of the reasons why so many men seem to be struggling in recent years.

I’ve known Mel through the online mental health community for some time so it was lovely to get to have a proper chat and hold space for her story like she does for so many others!

You can join her movement on Instagram @menagainstmountainsthemovement and you can catch my appearance on The Sunday Summit here:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/ClMeYfZop56/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

*PODBIBLE LISTENER POLL 2022 - VOTE FOR PROPER MENTAL*

POD BIBLE LISTENER POLLS 2022 - VOTE NOW! | POD BIBLE (podbiblemag.com)

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast and you can connect with me via the website here:

www.propermentalpodcast.com

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 46!

My guest this week is Dr Brendon Stubbs!

Dr. Brendon Stubbs is a clinical-academic physiotherapist with an interest in physical activity & mental health.

He has published over 650 academic papers in several leading journals across multiple scientific fields and co-authored the first evidence-based book on the use of physical activity for the treatment of people with mental illness.

He has featured on Sky News, ITV, BBC and in The New York Times.

Brendon and I chat about the benefits of physical activity on mental health and mental illness and breakdown what exactly constitutes physical activity.

We look at why exercise is good for mental wellbeing and what is happening in the body when we move and why it makes us feel good.

This one is a deep dive and was an absolutely fascinating conversation to be a part of.

Physical activity is a key component of good mental health but it tends to get banded around and prescribed whether it’s appropriate or not.  There is a lot of power in knowing ‘why’ something is good for us and how it works and that is what this conversation will give you!

You can connect with Brendon via social media @brendon.stubbs or the Kings College website Brendon Stubbs (kcl.ac.uk)

You can chat to me on Instagram @propermentalpodcast or email via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

You can support the podcast by buying me a coffee www.buymeacoffee.com\propermental.

Please take a minute to rate and review, it makes a huge difference and really is appreciated!

If you need to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk.

Thanks for listening!  Enjoy!

Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 4!

This week Tom & Chris chat to award winning film maker Hannah Currie!

Hannah Currie is an BAFTA-winning filmmaker from Glasgow, Scotland.  She is a very passionate campaigner for mental health awareness and recently attended parliament to ask the prime minister to provide a mental health spokesperson at future press briefings during the pandemic.

Rather than fill this space with details from the podcast we’ll just put links to Hannah’s films.  Please go and watch them.  They are all incredibly powerful, beautiful, heart breaking and inspiring all at once.  They deserve to be seen by as many eyes as possible.

Lumo Too Young to Die:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00054s7

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000kt06/next-big-thing-series-2-1-that-joke-isnt-funny-anymore

Not Your Average Influencers:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000q7l3/not-your-average-influencers

Blogs:

The making of my award-winning documentary | Mind

I asked the PM to provide a Covid-19 mental health spokesperson | Mind

You can find more about Hannah on her website www.Hannahcurriefilm.com.

Twitter @hannahcurrie or Instagram @hannahmilk

You can catch up with me at www.propermentalpodcast.com or connect with me via social media @propermentalpodcast.

If you would like to support Proper Mental by buying me a virtual coffee, please go to www.buymeacoffee.com/propermental

Another way to support is to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you get your podcasts from!

If you or anyone you know needs to find support in your local area, please go to www.hubofhope.co.uk

Thanks for listening!