'˜Relationships help mental health issues'

It comes as Mental Health Awareness Week is marked between May 16 and 22.

Hazel Nicholls, the clinical service director for italk – a free therapy service run on the south coast by Southern Health NHS Trust and Solent Mind – said relationships are fundamental to health.

She said: ‘Relationships are fundamental to our health and wellbeing. In fact, they are as vital as better-established lifestyle factors, such as healthy eating, frequent exercise and stopping smoking.

‘Unfortunately, modern life creates some barriers to forming good relationships, like mounting pressures on work–life balance and the impact of bullying on social media.

‘That’s why, during Mental Health Awareness Week, we’re calling on people to go the extra mile in prioritising their relationships.

‘We want people to make a relationship resolution – to assess how much time they actively commit to building and maintaining good relationships, and to ask whether they can invest more in being present with and listening to friends, family and colleagues – particularly those vulnerable to mental health.’

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