October is mental health month and this year’s theme is ‘Let’s talk about it’. We’re helping to get some important conversations started.

This Octo­ber we’re being encour­aged to reflect on our men­tal health and over­all well­be­ing, irre­spec­tive of whether we’ve per­son­al­ly encoun­tered men­tal illness.

Men­tal Health Month empha­sis­es the sig­nif­i­cance of main­tain­ing good men­tal health in our dai­ly lives and encour­ages a proac­tive approach to seek­ing help when necessary.

Here at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, we’ve cre­at­ed a video pod­cast series to help get you talk­ing about men­tal health.

We talk to experts and peo­ple with lived expe­ri­ence about their sto­ry and hear about their strate­gies and tips for bet­ter men­tal health.

First up is Craig Hamil­ton – for­mer ABC broad­cast­er, author and men­tal health and well­be­ing speaker.

Craig talks about his expe­ri­ence lead­ing up to his diag­no­sis of depres­sion and bipo­lar. The red flags that he missed and the strate­gies he now uses to main­tain a pos­i­tive men­tal out­look, from get­ting enough sleep, to box­ing and eat­ing well.

Craig also talks about his pow­er­ful new doc­u­men­tary about men­tal health and sui­cide, The Promise, which is now stream­ing on Stan.

Our sec­ond episode is all about resilience. We chat to Dr Jae­lea Ske­han – a psy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Every­mind, an organ­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the pre­ven­tion of men­tal ill health and suicide.

She dis­cuss­es how resilience can be a dif­fi­cult con­cept, which can put the onus back on indi­vid­u­als to “be strong and push through” times of struggle.

Jae­lea says she prefers to focus on hav­ing a work­place or home envi­ron­ment that is resilient and where peo­ple are sup­port­ed by those around them.

Next we take a look at the link between men­tal health and exercise.

Dr Ryan Drew is a phys­i­cal activ­i­ty researcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Newcastle’s School of Bio­med­ical Sci­ences. He talks about what is going on in your body and your brain when you exer­cise and why it’s a cru­cial part of improv­ing our men­tal health and gen­er­al wellbeing.

He shares his top tips for mak­ing exer­cise a reg­u­lar part of your life, even if you are a busy health professional!

Next we chat to Craig Kil­lian – a for­mer NSW Health Pathol­o­gy employ­ee who now works at eHealth. As some­one liv­ing with anx­i­ety and depres­sion, Craig is also an ambas­sador for men­tal health sup­port organ­i­sa­tion, Beyond Blue.

He spends time de-stig­ma­tis­ing the con­cept of men­tal health, de-thron­ing the Impos­si­ble Man, and pro­mot­ing the idea of self-care. He dis­cuss­es the impor­tance of being able to make a plan for good men­tal health and find the time to do things that bring you joy.

Craig reveals that his small moments of joy include some­thing as sim­ple as buy­ing a soft serve cone from McDon­ald’s after a stress­ful day.

Final­ly, we sit down with NSW Health Pathology’s Direc­tor of Peo­ple and Cul­ture, Dr Dean­na Paulin to talk about psy­cho­log­i­cal safety.

We dis­cuss what it means to feel psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe at work and why pro­vid­ing a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe space doesn’t mean your work­place can’t be chal­leng­ing, dif­fi­cult or con­stant­ly striv­ing to do better.

If any of the top­ics raised in these videos res­onat­ed with you, or you’d like to find out more, here are some options for you to reach out for sup­port or fur­ther information.

Beyond Blue

My Men­tal Health Fit­ness App

Every­mind

Guide­lines for lan­guage use

Tools to devel­op psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty at work

Clin­i­cal Excel­lence Com­mis­sion – resources for man­agers and teams on psy­cho­log­i­cal safety

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