10/10/2025
Today is World Mental Health Day - a day dedicated to raising awareness of mental health challenges and promoting the importance of wellbeing for everyone.
This year, the focus is around the impact of repeated exposure to news coverage of crises and conflicts, such as the War in Ukraine or the Manchester Synagogue attacks. Whether you are directly affected or not, it can still feel like a lot to cope with.
In the UK, there were approximately 9.8 million absence days taken for mental health in 2024, with stress, depression, and anxiety being the most common causes. This represents a significant increase from 2023, driven by factors such as high workloads, poor work-life balance, and increased awareness of mental health issues in the workplace.
Key Data Points for 2024:
• Mental health reasons accounted for 9.8% of all sickness absence occurrences.
• Stress, depression, and anxiety are the primary drivers: of mental health-related sick days.
• Work-related stress: was identified as a leading factor, with workloads being a major contributor.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed and low when we live in a society like today, i.e. 24/7 access to social media, the news and radio channels – it can feel like there isn’t often any positive news shared with the world. Doomscrolling are a term and action that affects many largely due to the accessibility to the news via the above channels.
Below and attached are useful tips to healthier news consumption:
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/articles/doomscrolling-tips-healthier-news-consumption