Monday 17th January marks ‘Brew Monday’, an initiative by the Samaritans to encourage people to stay connected and catch-up over a cuppa. It’s a more positive approach to ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday of January which is supposedly ‘the most difficult day of the year’.*
Whilst days such as ‘Blue Monday’ have helped raise awareness of mental health, it’s important to remember that we face mental health challenges all year round.
Mental health support when members need it
It’s worth reminding your clients with income protection or health insurance of the support available to them from The Exeter, through HealthWise**, our member benefits app.
HealthWise provides access to six sessions of mental health support per year with fully trained mental health specialists who can assess and treat a wide range of conditions.
In the last three months of 2021:
• Anxiety and depression were the two main reasons why members needed help
• Mondays and Wednesdays were the most popular days for a consultation
• In October 92% of members who used the service were men.
It’s encouraging to see such an uptake amongst men. Of course, we can’t conclusively link this to awareness days, but could it be that high profile campaigns like World Mental Health day and Movember encourage people to seek mental health support?
Either way, it’s good to know that HealthWise continues to provide valuable support to our members.
We’ll be publishing our HealthWise 2021 report soon in which we share how our members used the services last year. Look out for this!
* Samaritans Brew Monday 2022 https://www.samaritans.org/support-us/campaign/brew-monday/
** HealthWise is provided by Square Health.