5 reasons why marking World Mental Health Day (and its 2025 theme) is more important than ever

Observed since 1992, World Mental Health Day was first initiated by the World Federation for Mental Health as a way to ‘focus on preventing poor mental health and building and protecting good mental health’. And while, 33 years later, society is much more open and comfortable with talking about mental health, it’s fair to say that in 2025 this dedicated day to mental wellbeing is more relevant – and essential – than ever.

With a cost-of-living crisis in many countries, international conflicts and a political space that feels increasingly volatile, the list of things that could trigger a mental health crisis in 2025 are macro as well as micro. With this in mind, this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is 'access to mental health services in catastrophes and emergencies’, highlighting the importance of people being able to protect their mental health in times of global instability.

As health, safety and wellbeing professionals, it is our responsibility to not only appropriately mark this day, but use it as a time to review relevant policies and ask – should we be doing more for our employees? Does everyone on the team know what access is available to them should they face a mental health crisis? Can managers identify the common signs of a mental illness in their team members and support them appropriately?

Here are just five reasons why it’s a great idea to engage with this year’s World Mental Health Day campaign – both on a personal and company-wide level – and some resources to help you manage mental health and wellbeing for 10 October, and beyond.

For this year's World Mental Health Day, the focus is on the mental health impact of repeated exposure to news coverage of crises and conflicts. As the Mental Health Foundation puts it:

'It’s normal to feel down from time to time when we come across bad news, but constant exposure to negative online content could negatively affect mental health. ‘Doomscrolling’ is a relatively new term used to describe the impact of consuming large amounts of upsetting news online.’

It can be all too easy to fall into troubling spirals online when mobile phones are never far from our hands and upsetting content can be accessed indiscriminately of whether you chose to see something or not.

Solution: Control your news intake

There are healthy, safe ways to restrict news intake – without burying your head in the sand and losing touch with the most important stories of the day. The Mental Health Foundation has compiled a helpful list of tips to help manage news consumption and the impact of doomscrolling. These manageable actions include:

• Turning off ‘push’ notifications on your phone
• Setting a time limit with your phone’s alarm
• Considering a phone-free zone in your house
• Managing your social media feeds
• Balancing the negative with positive.

One tool that might help you do this is Charlie, an app that gives you a more balanced diet of news and ‘combines an intricate understanding of the day's news with an understanding of your reading habits to help you stay informed and avoid the rabbit hole of disinformation and fake news.’ Alternatively, check in with Positive News to find all the fantastic, good-news stories that are happening across the world right now.

With one in four UK adults experiencing mental health issues each year, creating safe, supportive spaces for people to talk has never been so important – and something businesses need to be aware of. As the Mental Health Federation says:

‘The world is going through a tough time right now and even if you're not directly affected by events, it can still feel like a lot to cope with. It's okay to ask for help, no matter what you, or anyone else is going through.’

There are many reasons why, even in 2025, over a third of people find it hard to openly communicate their mental health concerns to someone:

• Sometimes we tell ourselves that our problems aren’t significant or serious enough to be ‘worthy’ of discussion, compared to people, for example, in war zones.
• There is still a social stigma, particularly in some communities, about being seen as “not coping” or “being weak”.
• The person or people you might typically turn to for help might be the ones actually causing the stress or anxiety, such as in domestic abuse or bullying cases.
• A person might not have the vocabulary or ability to identify that they are struggling; they might just think the way they are feeling is normal or that it’ll go away on its own.

Solution: Talk whenever you can

Talking therapy – whether that’s professional therapy using a service such as Better Help or an informal chat with a colleague, friend or family member – has been proven time and time again to help with the effects of mental illness. Multiple surveys show that talking therapies have the greatest positive impact on mental health, compared to other treatments.

Whatever the issue, everyone should have a safe space they can access for help with their mental health. World Mental Health Day is a great opportunity for companies to review their policies when it comes to supporting healthy, empathetic and constructive conversations to happen in the workplace, such as training (more on this later).

Likewise, if you’re offering external support for mental wellbeing, such as a therapist, it’s a great time to remind yourself what’s included in your policy and ensure your workers know what support is available. If this isn’t yet available to your team, maybe it’s time to explore what could be offered with a corporate provider, such as SimplyHealth, WellHub or Spill.

With work and home life busier than ever, it’s easy to put our own needs at the bottom of the list. Balancing professional expectations, family responsibilities and societal pressures in 2025 means for many of us, mental health – or just the pursuit of things that make us happy and keep us well – is an afterthought. When you put external factors such as the economy, conflicts and climate crises on top of this, it’s easy to see why many of us are struggling. As the Mental Health Federation continues:

'We may not have the power to influence or change everything we’d like to on a global scale. But there are things we can do to protect ourselves and others from feeling overwhelmed and hopeless in the face of current events.’

Finding some form of balance to mentally “check out” and do something else for a while, is a great start to improving mental health.

Solution: Reassess what grounds you

What brings you joy, calmness and centres you? How can you encourage employees to pursue these things, too? Whether it’s five-a-side, Zumba, chess, life drawing or writing: we all need an outlet to improve our mental health. Organisations can encourage employees to make more time for their interests by:

• Encouraging (and demonstrating) a strict “clocking off” culture – and not expecting emails and messages to be replied to outside of work hours.
• Giving employees the trust and freedom to attend appointments and commitments, knowing that they will still complete their professional duties.
• Sharing your own interests outside of work and making it a part of your company culture to share weekend and after-work plans and interests.
• Encouraging employees to set up teams and groups to share interests and forge stronger social bonds outside of work.
• Offer team-building days, such as employee-led sessions to unite the team or fundraising events for employees to pursue something that means a lot to them.

When experiencing poor mental health – especially in the face of global issues – it's all too common to feel powerless. ‘What difference can I make? I'm only one person, surely this is a job for governments to fix?’ These feelings of overwhelm can be paralysing, preventing you from seeing a way forward and seeking a solution.

But as the old saying going ‘those who are happiest are those who do for others.’ It’s easy to feel helpless when you, or someone you know, is struggling with mental health. But gathering around a good cause, pushing yourself physically or outside of your comfort zone, and raising money for a good cause – especially if that cause is mental-health related – is an excellent way to channel concern into positive action.

Solution: Pick a fundraising challenge

Whether you join an existing event or challenge, such as a run, skydive or ultra events, or decide to plan your own fundraising event, such as a Tea & Talk, there are many enjoyable and rewarding ways to raise money for important causes. Likewise – if you’re short on time or resource – you can donate what you can to mental health charities such as Mind and the Mental Health Foundation.

It's amazing what one event, conversation or person can achieve – before you know it, you might find fundraising becomes an annual or bi-annual occurrence. Perhaps everyone will love you Tea & Talk so much that the demand is there for monthly events, or you might smash your first running goal so you feel inspired to set an even more challenging one next time. Any fundraiser or donation, no matter how small, is always a step in the right direction.

Identifying signs of poor mental health – both in ourselves and others – is often complex. Add to that the responsibility of employee mental health, and there are a whole new set of challenges, signs and signals to navigate as a manager. Some of the side effects of poor mental health include:

• Aches and pains
• Tiredness
• Digestive problems
• Trouble concentrating
• Difficulty making decisions
• Low motivation
• Absence from work
• Irritability
• Anger
• Despair
• Feeling “stuck”

Not only is it about pinpointing the behaviours that could be caused by mental health difficulties, but it’s about knowing how to sensitively conduct those conversations and signpost helpful next steps in getting support. Businesses may also need to address the triggers and ways to make reasonable adjustments to an individual’s needs. It’s a lot of moving parts for a manager to handle correctly.

Solution: Take the opportunity to review your training

To ensure your managers are as up to date as possible on how to spot signs of mental health struggles in their team members, and to deal with these issues properly, it’s important to check appropriate training has been completed. A course like IOSH Occupational Health and Wellbeing is designed to help leaders plan and manage the mental health and wellbeing of people in their organisations.

The IOSH Occupational Health and Wellbeing course trains managers on how to:

• Manage health risks effectively.
• Understand your own responsibilities for health and wellbeing and why it makes good business sense.
• Manage fluctuations in people's health status and assess their fitness for work.
• Measure your own performance as a manager.
• Learn how to help co-workers return to work after illness.
• Discover how to recognise a 'well' employee.
• Reflect on good practice, both personally and organisation wide.

Having a dedicated day like World Mental Health Day – or even a whole week, like World Mental Health Week (which is observed in May each year) – where your company can actively promote fundraising events and conversations around mental health, is an excellent start to reducing the stigma of this topic. Likewise, it’s an excellent opportunity to use the day as a springboard to assess internal processes, attitudes and behaviours, and find weaknesses and areas for improvement.

However you mark World Mental Health Day this year, we hope that year by year, you and your team are growing more confident in taking action to support this essential element of health and safety, all year long.