This year, Mental Health Awareness Week has had the theme ‘Address your Stress.’ It’s so easy to get caught up in the workplace and it’s time to put yourself first, take five and look after your mental health. After all, your health is your wealth and you need to look after your mind the same way you’d look after your body.

According to mental health charity Mind, recent statistics reveal that 25% of the UK will suffer from mental health problems during their life, so however isolated you may feel, you are not alone.

David Harewood, star of US TV drama Homeland, has recently spoken about how a breakdown he had in his early acting career that led him to being sectioned. There’s no shame in talking about mental health, with the breakdown helping him to grow; “Mental health isn’t some kind of death sentence. Find help and support and you can pull through.” In recent years, mental health problems amongst those we know and love is amazingly common and almost normal, and we need to let everyone know that it’s ok to talk about it whenever they feel stressed or overwhelmed.

Last week Deadpool 2 star Ryan Reynolds openly talked about the fact that he suffers from anxiety, and to cope with the overwhelming feelings, he now conducts interviews as his famous marvel character. There is always something to be done to tackle the feelings of mental health and always someone willing to listen and help.

All of us in one way or another are touched by these issues but often we feel powerless to do anything to help. But the fact is that none of us can consider ourselves immune from mental illness.

We all face many problems in our lives. Here at Jackson Lees, we try making a positive difference to staff by encouraging employees to ‘take 5’; 5 minutes to make a tea, 5 minutes to talk to a friend or colleague, 5 minutes to play a quick game of table tennis or go for a leg stretch and walk round outside. It’s amazing what a 5 minute time out can do to get your mental health back on track.

The Jackson Lees Group are passionate about making a positive difference, not only to our clients and members of the public, but to our staff as well. On the 17th May, we took over Exchange Flags square with drinks, food and table tennis and encouraged everyone to ‘take 5’; 5 minutes out of their day to talk about mental health and have a game to boost your mood and get out in the sunshine. The stand went down a storm, with our mental health experts Mike Davis and Michaela Hesketh taking on members of the public while we break down the stigma attached to mental health issues and talking about the problems we may be facing. We all need a bit of help from time to time. If we all make the effort to take 5 minutes when you need it and look after your mind, we will feel better placed to face what life throws at us and be more willing to talk openly and honestly about our problems and how we got through them.