Mental Health Expert Interview with Simon Blake CEO of Mental Health England by Darren A. Smith MBM

Today's podcast features mental health questions and answers by our expert Simon Blake. Here's a quick overview of the questions:

What is the definition of mental health?

How has Covid-19 affected mental health?

How accurately is mental health reported in the media?

How does mental health affect physical health?

How does mental health affect your life?

Why is mental health important? - Why is mental health training important?

Why is mental health on the rise?

Please tell us about mental health month/week.

When is mental health too much?

What does mental health mean to you?

Where can someone get a mental health diagnosis?

You Can Read the Full Transcript on Mental Health Questions and Answers Below:

Darren Smith:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Darren Smith, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer of MBM Making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. We are the soft skills training provider to retailers and manufacturers around the globe. The idea of these interviews is to bring to you the expert's inside knowledge of how you can be the very best version of you. Welcome to the show. Welcome Simon Blake. We are here at Sticky Learning, MBM, and we have the great honour of talking to you. Now, I know that you are the CEO of Mental Health England. I know that you ride horses and you've got a competition tomorrow. But what I'd like to do is, for the guys that are watching is say, why should we talk to you about mental health?

Simon Blake:

Simon Blake, on Mental Health Questions and Answers

 

So, I mean, the first thing, of course is that everybody should be talking about mental health and talking about mental health properly and seriously. So great to be here talking with you. But I am Chief Executive of Mental Health First Aid England, which is an organisation that wants to train one in 10 of the adult population in mental health first aid England skills and knowledge because we think that will create a cultural tipping point in which enough people have the skills and understanding around mental health to make a real difference.

Simon Blake:

I also, of course, have lived experience in terms of live with a partner who has their own mental health conditions, friends, family, my own ups and downs in all sorts of things. So, yeah, I have some professional expertise and then some personal expertise. But just go right back to the first bit. We all need to be talking about it, and that's why you should talk to me because hopefully, I encourage some people too [inaudible1:47].

Darren Smith:

Fabulous. Alright, we've got about 12 questions. Most of them are those that either come from people on LinkedIn or they are searching for them on Google. So we saw these questions and we thought, who better to ask than you? So we are going to go through these questions, ask you, we might go off a tangent, we might ask you to share a few stories. But for the viewers at home or at work, what we are really trying to do is get all those goodies that are inside your head around mental health out so we can help each other.

Simon Blake:

Cool.

Darren Smith:

So our first question is, what is the definition of mental health?

Simon Blake:

Sure. I mean, the World Health Organisation, I know Donald Trump's not their biggest fan. But the World Health Organisation defines mental health as a state of well-being in which individuals realise their own potential can cope with the normal stresses of everyday life, can work productively and fruitfully, which is obviously a good term for those working in supermarkets and be able to contribute to their own community. So that's the World Health Organisation definition. I guess the key bit in that is this is about well-being.

Simon Blake:

We often talk about mental health when we mean mental ill health, and it's really important to recognise. We talk about one in four people experiencing poor mental health each year. What we talk less about is that four in four of us have mental health and that we rely on that to help us get through every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Darren Smith:

Right. Because you're right, I talked to my mum and dad, obviously, they're a generation of about 70, 80 years. And they talk about people, oh, he's got mental health. So they use it almost in that negative, which is wrong. And I guess they, and even I haven't wrapped my head around mental health actually. We're talking about either illness or well-being. Right.

Simon Blake:

Yes. And of course, it's a continuum, isn't it? That some of us will have a clinically diagnosed condition. Some of us might have highs and lows. We will have bad moments and experience bereavement or divorce or separation or whatever it is. So our mental health is a bit like our physical health. We don't either have pure physical health or an illness. We are all different parts and there is a similar sort of thing with our mental health. But we may not have a clinically diagnosed illness, but we may be operating 80% for a few weeks for whatever reasons, whether that's external or internal.

Darren Smith:

And that perfectly brings us onto our next question, which is what we're all going through right now. For some people, hell on earth, for others, even worse. So how has, I think I know the answer, but interesting for you to elaborate. How has covid affected people's mental health?

Simon Blake:

So, I think it's fair to say it have affected people in numerate different ways. And I just want to start by saying, of course, that there are some people who have been locked down, who have not been locked down in safe houses, in safe experiences. So maybe in violent relationships. Some people have experienced homophobia or transphobia or whatever it is within their home life. So I think there are some, some key things which we just have to acknowledge. Because I think sometimes people forget that we don't all have the luxury of a safe home. But also once you sort of acknowledge that, that even though lots of people have had awful experiences which may have include being bereaved and not being able to go to the funeral and grieve properly.

Simon Blake:

So some really bad things, most people have adapted incredibly well. That moment with an hour a day, whatever it is, notice that it's going to be different tomorrow. Whether it's going to be different tomorrow and you are going to still come to workplace, or it's going to be different tomorrow, you're going to stop coming to the workplace. Yeah, there's lots of things where we've adapted incredibly well. What we also know is that a much higher level of people have experienced anxiety during lockdown since Covid began. And whilst we don't have all of the information now, of course, as the restrictions, ease there is much, much more room for people to get anxious about all sorts of different things. About am I going to be forced back into the workplace? Am I going to have to get public transport and is that going to be safe?

Simon Blake:

What's happening with our borders? Am I able to do X, Y, and Z? The reality is that most of us are a little bit confused and, of course, being confused because the rules are not being as communicated as clearly as they could be, in my opinion. And the variation across the four countries, it doesn't help that. But what that means, of course, is that when we are not sure it can exacerbate worry and concern and anxiety. And for some people it is also important to say no commute, more time at home, an opportunity to slow down, an opportunity to not travel internationally as part of their job has brought some real positive benefits as well. So I think it is really important that we acknowledge the adaptability that as human beings, we've done incredibly well. However hard it's been, we've done incredibly well.

Darren Smith:

Yeah.

Simon Blake:

And that it has been difficult for some people and will continue to be, and that there have been some positives for some people, and that most people, of course, have gone back and forth. If you asked me last week how it was a very different answer than how it is today.

Darren Smith:

Very true. You're right, it's a very changing picture. I mean, we as a family, we went out on Saturday and the whole mask thing, it's just, I don't know. We wanted to go out and sadly, we went into a weather spring for lunch. There was no mask in there. Or we went into a clothes shop and it said, you must wear a mask, sanitise your hands. Absolutely. We went in, there were six assistants without masks and you're thinking this is all a bit confusing.

Simon Blake:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Darren Smith:

Well, we got it.

Simon Blake:

Yeah. And I think that that is, yeah, I've used public transport probably three times since March. On Sunday I got on [inaudible 8:49] railway, and there were probably similar six or seven people without their masks on and I was furious. I'm not a person who gets furious about much. And then I was like, just breathe. By the time I got home, I was like why were there so many people? Why weren't the people on the train saying to them that they should be doing it? Of course, yeah, actually I had my mask on. I was far enough away. But there's something about our interactions with each other, what's happened in this period and our own. Clearly, it triggered something in me.

Simon Blake:

I don't normally go from not 60 in quite the speed that I did in that moment, which suggests that it worried me rather than it made me angry, even though I felt fury. Then of course, I'm 45. No, I'm not 46-year-old Blake. So always sort of equipped like many of us with the nuance of emotion. So it took me a while to just step back and go, okay, what's happening? And that's what I think all of us are going to have to do a bit more of.

Darren Smith:

That's very true.