This May, the BBC is bringing audiences a wide range of mental health and wellbeing content that highlights the stories of those who are facing mental health struggles, as well as helping audiences explore what they can do to look after their mental wellbeing, and where to go for further support.
A new website is the central hub of the BBC’s mental health and wellbeing content, and includes tips to get you through the day, music and meditation to help you relax and advice for supporting yourself and others.
This year, one of the key themes of the season is focused on physical activity and movement, and how it can help with your mental health. The season is being supported by fitness coach Joe Wicks, who presented the acclaimed documentary about his parents' mental health issues, Joe Wicks: Facing my Childhood. He has recorded two special mood-boosting workouts for when you are feeling overwhelmed, alongside bespoke video content, a Mindful Mix for BBC Soundsand a specially curated Wellbeing Watchlist on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Homepage.
Joe Wicks says: “I’m really proud to be involved in the BBC’s Mental Wellbeing season because it’s something I’m so passionate about. To take care of your mental health, you’ve got to take care of your physical health, they are so interlinked. I’d like to say to anyone who is struggling, I really hope that they will lean on this season and look out for the content. Some of the conversations that are had could really help you.”
Content on television includes special reports and discussion on popular BBC shows including The One Show, Morning Live, Countryfile and coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Radio content includes a new programme with Tom Service exploring the connections between movement, music and mental health on Radio 3 alongside composer Gavin Higgins considering how his Tourette Syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder has informed his music in the Sunday Feature. There are documentaries on Radio 4 looking at Dissociative Identity Disorder and the mental health pressures on serving politicians and Claudia Hammond presents a special edition of All in the Mind. 1Xtra’s DJ Day Day & Kaylee Golding launch a week of physical challenges and there is a special focus on the mental health of construction workers on Radio 5 Live.
In addition, radio’s longest running drama, The Archers will explore how one event can have far-reaching and unexpected consequences on mental health.
BBC Radio 6 Music launches Change The Tune - an on-air, digital and social media initiative to raise awareness of the impact that online abuse has on the lives of artists.
BBC Sounds features a new Self Care collection and the launch of a new podcast series with Dr Michael Mosley: Deep Calm as well as the Music & Meditation Podcast with Izzy Judd and a host of music titles from Mindful Mix to The Sleeping Forecast.
Content for children and parents includes a special Live Lesson on CBBC and BBC Teach, made in partnership with the Mental Health Foundation, featuring Paralympian Ade Adepitan and Blue Peter’s Shini Muthukrishnan as well as a special guest appearance from England captain, Harry Kane. In addition, Newsround will have an in-depth report looking at the impact of poor housing on children’s mental health.
BBC Ideas has commissioned an animation looking at how breathing can be optimised for better health and a short film exploring how climate change and heat waves impact our mental health.
BBC Children in Need will be launching a special campaign to raise awareness, deliver resources, and open up a nationwide conversation around children’s mental health.
There will be further activity across BBC News, BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and local radio.
Charlotte Moore, BBC Chief Content Officer says: “The BBC has been at the forefront of raising awareness around mental health issues for many years through a range of programming, and our commitment continues with the launch of a new mental wellbeing website to coincide with this season. This year we have a breadth of content on TV, radio and digital that I hope will encourage conversation and importantly provide the tools and resources to help support people and those around them.”
Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation says: “We have so much more to do to equip people with skills and understanding to live with good mental health. That is why BBC’s Mental Wellbeing Season is such a valuable opportunity to reach people across the UK with stories, guidance, and inspiration to support their mental health and wellbeing. We hope together this partnership will mean more people can enjoy all that is on offer, bust myths, and feel motivated to try new things that will make a real difference."
Mind’s Chief Executive, Dr Sarah Hughes, says: “ It’s crucial the media continues to help raise awareness and provides accurate information about the realities of living with a mental health problem. Our own research shows us that sensitive, accurate and responsible dramas, documentaries, and news reports can prompt people, particularly young people, to talk about their mental health, seek help themselves and support others in their own lives.
“Never has it been more important to make sure mental wellbeing is centre stage and the BBC’s mental health season could make a real difference. The power of encouraging discussion, raising awareness, and signposting to mental health support cannot be underestimated.”
The season runs throughout the month of May with a spike of activity from 13-19 May to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.
Television
Countryfile
Sean Fletcher and Margherita Taylor travel to The Sharpham Trust located in the beautiful wilds of South Devon which offers a range of programmes that help with different aspects of mental health and wellbeing.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show
This year, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show will be championing the positive benefits of gardening on our mental wellbeing. Some of the main show gardens are promoting the importance of access to green spaces for communities to connect with nature, whilst others have been designed for patient recovery in hospitals or as restorative spaces for all.
In addition to the gardens there are many examples of the power of the horticulture for wellbeing throughout the showground, such as in the House Plant Studios notably ‘The Glass House’ which is highlighting the power of plants to change the lives of women in prison.
The One Show
The One Show are running a series of films dedicated to mental health as part of the BBC Mental Wellbeing Season. This includes a film with Peter Andre about a café that promotes wellbeing and another about 12 NHS frontline nurses going on a restorative weekend to feel the transformative effect of being in nature.
The first film airs tonight and explores the stigma around suicide with renowned barrister Michael Mansfield who is best known for his work on some of the biggest miscarriages of justice. In 2015, Michael faced a very personal tragedy when his daughter, Anna, took her own life
BBC Teach/BBC Children’s
Live Lesson: Monday 13 May, 11am
Paralympian Ade Adepitan and Blue Peter’s Shini Muthukrishnan are getting active in this fun and feel-good Live Lesson and they want school children to join in as they choreograph a new BBC Moodboosters routine.
Wellbeing expert Dr Radha Modgil will be on hand to explain the links between physical and mental health and Olympic & European Gold Medallist Sam Quek will share her top tips for easy ways children can build activity into their day. England football captain Harry Kane will also be making a guest appearance, sharing his advice on how to express our feelings.
The Live Lesson is made in partnership with the Mental Health Foundation and inspired by the 2024 theme: Movement: Moving more for our mental health. The 30 minute programme will be available to watch via BBC Teach and on CBBC.
Radio
BBC Radio 3
Monday 13 – Friday 17 May
The Essay: Music in Bloom
9.45pm-10pm
Katie Derham delves into the surprising connections between classical music, gardens and plants for mental health wellbeing.
Monday 13 May: Good vibrations
In the first episode, Katie talks to botanist Chris Thorogood about whether music can help plants grow, before chatting to composer Erland Cooper about the inspiration behind his project Music to help flowers grow.
Tuesday 14 May: Stylistic similarities
Katie talks to conductor and tenor Paul Agnew about whether we can draw stylistic parallels between classical music and garden design in previous centuries. She also asks landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith how he approaches his work with musical constructs in mind.
Wednesday 15 May: Seeds of inspiration
With pianist David Owen Norris, Katie discusses how composers have been inspired by gardens across the centuries, before asking composer Helen Anahita Wilson how gardens and specific plants have shaped her musical creations.
Thursday 16 May: Musical gardens
Glyndebourne head gardener Kevin Martin talks to Katie about how the gardens shape the opera productions. Also in today’s episode, Alessandra Vinciguerra - director of La Mortella Gardens in Italy – talks about how Susanna Walton’s gardening influenced her composer husband William’s projects.
Friday 17 May: Cultivate wellbeing
In the final episode of the series, Katie chats to professor of psychobiology Daisy Fancourt about why music and gardens are beneficial to our physical and mental health, before hearing from baritone Roderick Williams about how his garden helps him balance the pressures of an international performance career.
‘Round Midnight with Soweto Kinch
11.30pm-12.30pm
‘Round Midnightmarks the BBC’s Mental Wellbeing Season by ending each weekday show with a Spiritual Jazz track. Expect classic and new compositions, offering space for reflection.
Friday 17 May
Essential Classics with Georgia Mann
9.30am–1pm
Today’s Playlister will help relieve the stress of everyday living with a listener-suggested sequence of calming music.
In Tune with Sean Rafferty
5pm-7pm
Radio 3’s drivetime show In Tune marks the BBC’s Mental Wellbeing Season with a special guests.
Saturday 18 May
Breakfast with Elizabeth Alker
6.30am-9am
Today’s sunrise playlist includes a specially commissioned track taken from the Music and Meditation podcast to mark the BBC’s Mental Wellbeing Season.
Saturday Morning with Tom Service
9am-12pm
The programme today explores the connections between movement, music and mental health.
Tom asks real questions about the mental health of working musicians and how low pay, long hours and demanding touring schedules impact on musicians’ mental health.
Tom also asks which instruments and musical practices require the most movement and we’ll have a specially curated sequence of music designed to get you moving and help you wind down.
This Classical Life with Jess Gillam
5pm-6pm
Jess’ guest is the folk singer Olivia Chaney and the two discuss how music helps our mental health.
Sunday 26 May
Sunday Feature: Everything Stops
7.15pm – 8pm
Composer Gavin Higgins considers how his Tourette Syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder has informed his music. He meets fellow musicians with similar stories and clinical experts to try and form a clearer picture of these misunderstood conditions.
BBC Radio 4
Sunday 5 May
The Switch
1.30pm-2pm
Three people from three different eras reveal what it's like to live with multiple personalities, or Dissociative Identity Disorder.
A retired librarian who lived through the disorder's most controversial time and has found peace as several parts; an early YouTuber who fought stigma about DID and now lives as one person; and a young TikToker navigating life as a 'system'.
Presenter/producer: Lucy Proctor
Researcher: Anna Harris
Mixed by: James Beard
Monday 13 May
Book of the Week: The Immune Mind by Monty Lyman, 1/5
11.45am-12pm
Delving into the recent discovery of the intimate relationship between the brain and the body’s immune system, Dr Monty Lyman reveals the extraordinary implications for our physical and mental health.
Up until the last 10 years, we have misunderstood a fundamental aspect of human health. The brain and the body have always been viewed as separate entities – treated in separate hospitals – but science now shows that they are intimately linked.
Startlingly, we now know that our immune system is in constant communication with our brain and can directly alter our mental health. Biological science and cognitive science are inseparable. This has opened up a new frontier in medicine. Could inflammation cause depression, and arthritis drugs cure it? Can gut microbes shape your behaviour via the vagus nerve? Could childhood infections lie behind neurological and psychiatric disorders?
A specialist in the cutting-edge field of immunopsychiatry, Monty Lyman argues that we need to change the way we treat disease, and the way we see ourselves.
Read by Gunnar Cauthery
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
Sunday 19 May
Broken Politicians, Broken Politics
1.30pm-2pm
Are our politicians broken? A recent independent survey conducted with politicians worldwide describes how some 40% suffer from low mental wellbeing; lower in fact that than emergency workers during the covid pandemic. In this new digital age with its high level of public scrutiny, the sheer amount of abuse, disdain and direct threat our politicians receive is causing their mental wellbeing to take a real hit. And this matters. Broken politicians equals broken politics and that’s bad news for us all.
Monday 20 May
Book of the Week: A Body Made of Glass by Caroline Crampton, 1/5
11.45am-12pm
Caroline Crampton explores the history of hypochondria, drawing together cultural history and moving personal memoir.
When she was 17, Caroline Crampton developed a blood cancer which was diagnosed when a tumour appeared on her neck. After several rounds of gruelling treatment, including chemotherapy and weeks in an isolation ward, the doctors announced that her cancer was cured. But – understandably – Caroline herself was not so sure. Ever alert to new symptoms, feeling anxiously for new tumours on her neck, she worries continually that the cancer has returned.
This personal experience becomes the starting point for an exploration of the history of hypochondria or health anxiety, from the ancient Greeks to the modern wellness industry. It is, she says, ‘an ancient condition which makes itself anew for every age’.
Produced and abridged by Elizabeth Burke and Heather Dempsey
Executive Producer: Jo Rowntree
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4
This is an EcoAudio certified production.
All in the Mind
The world’s longest-running programme on mental health will be looking at the science behind the finding that for some people exercise improves their mental health. Presenter Claudia Hammond who’s Visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Sussex will be examining the latest evidence on what is it about moving the body that seems to help the mind. Does it relate to the chemicals released by the body when we exercise, to the feeling of achievement that an exercise session can give you or is it something else entirely? And if you’re feeling depressed and moving is the last thing you feel like doing, is exercise really going to help?
The Archers
The Archers will explore how one event can have far-reaching and unexpected consequences on mental health. No stranger to covering these sensitive topics, radio’s longest running drama has tackled drug and alcohol abuse, depression, psychosis and the damaging long term effects of coercive control and abuse.
6 Music
Change the Tune
BBC Radio 6 Music launches Change The Tune - an on-air, digital and social media initiative to raise awareness of the impact that online abuse has on the lives of artists.
We will hear from musicians and presenters, who will share their online experiences, as well as from mental health professionals about the effects that personal attacks online can have on individuals and their lives.
In response, 6 Music will launch a clear code of conduct and a new means of reporting comments of concern on its own social media platforms.
1Xtra
1Xtra Talks with Richie Brave
Sunday 12 May
9pm-10pm
For our mental health show on 12 May, we will be talking about the importance of safe spaces for Black men and boys to talk about / explore difficult emotions, looking at the conditioning to be 'tough' on the exterior and how this impacts mental health across the board. We will be joined by two of the cast of the theatre production "For Black Boys..." and bibliotherapist & hypno-psychotherapist Alex Holmes.
1Xtra’s DJ Day Day & Kaylee Golding
Mon 13 May – Friday 17 May
10am-4pm
Move Your Mood
Join Kaylee Golding and DJ Day Day for an exhilarating week of on-air physical challenges. Fuelled by celebrity guests, music and listener support, their mission is to rack up 100 points by week’s end. They will be rallying communities across the UK to join their 'Movement Map', gain points and ignite a nationwide movement to uplift spirits through physical
Radio 5 Live
On 15 May, Radio 5 Live will have a special focus on the mental health of construction workers. Workers in this industry are nearly four times more likely to die by suicide than in any other sector. 5 Live will be joining a group of workers taking part in a Construction Sport’s walking marathon to talk and share stories.
BBC Sounds
The Self Care Collection on BBC Sounds includes a wide range of content to help look after your mental health alongside a wider variety of music mixes and shows to help you get moving as well as relax and wind down.
The Music & Meditation Podcast
To mark the BBC’s Mental Wellbeing Season, escape the noise of daily life through the power of music and meditation. Join presenter Izzy Judd to experience guided meditations from special guests covering topics from making peace with imperfections to reducing stress and releasing body tension, all enhanced by an immersive classical soundtrack.
Just One Thing: Deep Calm Podcast
Presented by Dr Michael Mosley.
Mindful Mix
The Mindful Mix marks the BBC’s Mental Wellbeing Season with a series of special guest-hosted episodes from 13 May. Join Joe Wicks, Sue Perkins, Anna Lapwood and Elis James as they provide soothing classical music to help listeners unwind, relax and see things more clearly.
Ultimate Calm with Ólafur Arnalds
Series 2 of Ultimate Calm with Ólafur Arnalds returns to BBC Sounds on 1 May. Join Ólafur for a journey into calm, explored through all forms of classical and ambient music.
The Sleeping Forecast
Izzy Judd, host of the Music & Meditation Podcast, presents a special, meditative episode of The Sleeping Forecast to help you get some much needed rest.
Pace Setter
Enjoy hours of specially selected motivational pop, dance, rock and R&B hits to get you motivated, enhance your journey and keep you moving.
Essential Classics Mix
Radio 3’s ‘Essential Classics Mix’ (available from 13 May on BBC Sounds) presents a special episode to boost mental wellbeing, featuring a selection of tracks to help you feel soothed and calm, including music from Fela Sowande, Bach and Debussy.
BBC News
BBC News will be supporting the season with a series of news stories that will be rolled out across TV, radio and online including a film with Blokes United – a football team in Blackburn who support over 300 socially isolated men.
BBC Ideas
BBC Ideas has commissioned a special animation made in partnership with the Royal Society featuring author James Nestor explaining how we can breath for better health. And a new short film made in partnership with The Open University explores how climate change and heat waves impact our brains and our mental health.
BBC Scotland
Janey, a documentary about the extraordinary life of comedian Janey Godley will be shown on BBC Scotland and BBC iPlayer as part of the season.
This film follows Janey on her 2023 Not Dead Yet Tour, following her diagnosis of terminal cancer. It features reflections on a life which has encompassed being sexual abused as a child and her mother being murdered, along with a career which has spanned cult online status, international tours and UK-recognition on shows like Have I Got News for You. And potentially career ending ‘cancellation’ when offensive historic tweets emerged, just shortly before she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
In the documentary film, Janey is touring with her best mate Shirley, and her daughter, comedian Ashley Storrie, who can currently be seen in the lead role of the brand new BBC Scotland/BBC Three comedy series Dinosaur, which she also co-created. Their relationship is woven throughout the film, with Ashley capturing intimate moments on tour. But the documentary also sees Janey reviewing pivotal times in her life, with her trademark take-no-prisoners honesty and dark humour.
Janey, BBC Scotland 14 May at 10pm
BBC Radio Scotland/ BBC Radio nan Gàidheal
BBC Radio Scotland’s series and podcast Out of Doors will be offering an escape from the daily grind with its focus on nature and the Mornings programme will have its resident GP Punam Krishan on mental health issues in its Ask the Doctor surgery, with further reflection on the issue on music show Get it On with Bryan Burnett.
BBC Radio nan Gàidheal, with programming in Gaelic, will have a strand about mindfulness in the coming weeks on its Naoi Gu Deich series, which has also recently featured maternal mental health. And items on mental health and stress have also featured on youth programe Cruinn and topical affairs series Feasgar.
BBC Wales
On BBC Radio Wales, presenter and Celebrity MasterChef champion, Wynne Evans will be sharing his own mental health stories, and inviting listeners to talk about their mental wellbeing throughout the month. His ‘Soundtrack Stories’ will also ask for the listeners feel-good tracks. The Radio Wales Phone In will be discussing how the month’s key theme of movement helps mental wellbeing, as well as looking at the sounds that make us feel more positive, from nature to apps.
In addition, ultra-athlete, Josh Llewellyn-Jones who has Cystic Fibrosis will be speaking to Radio Wales’s Drive programme. He says:
"Cystic Fibrosis is often seen as a physical disease but when you’re growing up being told your life will be short, turns it into a mental battle too. I know just how important and powerful it can be to set yourself up mentally for obstacles that get thrown at you, which is why I’m so passionate about getting involved with the BBC to help people to build resilience and overcome challenges."
Afternoon advice hours will have a special focus on wellbeing, while Terry Walton’s Plotcast will look at the mental health benefits of gardening and being outdoors. Presenter H – from the band Steps - shares how painting (pictures, not walls!) makes him feel better. And our religion team will be reflecting on mental wellbeing in their output, including the weekly ‘Thoughts’ and in the programme All Things Considered. Meanwhile, Breakfast will have a special interview with someone who is returning to running following a cancer diagnosis.