top of page

Helping Anxiety By Making The Unfamiliar More Familiar


Anxiety is the theme of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023


Anxiety can affect us physically and mentally. If you are feeling anxious, you might notice your heart rate increasing, headaches, loss of appetite, breathlessness or chest pain. Anxiety might make you feel tense or nervous, find it hard to relax, feel tearful or have problems sleeping and concentrating. Friends or family might notice you are more irritable than usual, or more withdrawn. Or perhaps you seem fine on the outside but feel panicky inside” (from https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/mental-health-awareness-week)


Anxiety isn’t just something we can overcome on our own. So much of what may trigger anxiety is not within our control.


Whilst we focus on accessibility as our main mission, we know that mental health and anxiety go very much hand in hand with accessibility issues.


For people living with disability, chronic illnesses, invisible illnesses, neurodivergent and other mental health issues, getting out and about can cause overwhelming anxiety. It’s not always about physical accessible facilities, it’s also about the amount of available information about a location or venue. Fear of the unknown is a huge cause of anxiety for many people and can become debilitating in its own right.


Our mission is to provide as much information about as many locations as possible in the form of detailed videos that can be viewed by anyone at any time.


We want people to be able to see the layout of the venue, inside toilets and changing rooms, where the emergency exits are located, car parking, drop off points and disabled parking or parent parking, lifts and stairs, sensory input such as sound and lighting levels, doorways and door operation, terrain, disabled facilities, seating areas, if food and drinks are available, where to go if there is an issue… Everything!


We realise that anxiety comes in many forms for many reasons. Ours is just one way that we know we can help.


Find out how you can help, get help for yourself or raise awareness at https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/


You can also find a range of mental health resources here



13 views0 comments

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating
bottom of page