Mental Health Awareness Week - infographic

Every year Mental Health Awareness Week looks to highlight a specific issue surrounding mental health. This year, the focus is on mindfulness - a technique that's become increasingly popular when tackling stress, anxiety and depression.

Mindfulness involves taking a step back from your thoughts and instead focusing attention on the present moment. Bringing yourself to the here and now is thought to be especially helpful for conditions like anxiety and depression.

Feeling stressed, anxious or depressed can often be traced back to your thinking. You may be ruminating on a past event, or you may be worrying about a future event.

Mindfulness looks to bring your awareness back to the present, avoiding unhelpful thinking patterns. Over time, mindfulness has been shown to lower stress levels and has been proven effective in treating depression and anxiety.

If you want to try mindfulness, there are many ways you can get started. Lots of counsellors now offer mindfulness as a therapy. There are also mindfulness training groups you can attend and there are even online programmes and apps you can try.

To help promote the benefits of mindfulness, we have created an infographic detailing some facts about mindfulness and some tips about how you can be more mindful every day. If you found this useful, please feel free to share it on Facebook and Twitter.

To find out more about the technique, read our mindfulness fact sheet. To get involved in the awareness week, visit the Mental Health Foundation website.