Mental Health Monday

Mick Coyle has a freebie for you that could change your life. This week he's joining up with CALM to talk about their new scientifically-backed app that's designed to give you help, advice and support through your smartphone. CEO Simon Gunning tells Mick why the latest data tells us why its needed and how the UK's expected to spend BIG on mental health apps in 2026. Find out more about...

Emma Rushton was enjoying a holiday in Berlin's Christmas markets when terrorists struck. 12 people were killed when a lorry ploughed through a packed city centre in December 2016. Despite the trauma she'd witnessed in the market, Emma's experience as a journalist meant she was invited to speak to media from around the world as an eye-witness. Her training meant she could set out the f...

As we reach the end of 2025, Mick Coyle has some incredible updates about the Lost Souls investigation . Since Mick brought you the news of 250,000 unmarked graves of mental health patients lying across the UK, often anonymous, often abandoned, he's been speaking with countless charities, organisations, campaigners and politicians about his findings. Since the conversation started, a petition...

Lou Teasdale joins Journalist Mick Coyle ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day 2025. Lou is on the podcast to talk about her experience of losing loved ones to suicide, and the shocking stats around young suicide in the UK in 2025. She's teaming up with Body & Soul to find new pathways for those struggling with suicidal thoughts, and to find new ways to end the UK's young suicide crisi...

What is the Baton of Hope, and what does it represent in 2025? Mick Coyle meets the team behind the suicide prevention tour on this week's podcast, and meets some of the people who've been given the honour of carrying it as it makes it way across the UK. Mike McCarthy tells us why the symbolism of carrying hope around the country is needed now more than ever, and what he hopes to achieve w...

Mick Coyle returns with a new documentary. Over the last few months he's uncovered some uncomfortable truths about the fate of Britain's mental asylum graves. Lost Souls investigates: More than a quarter of a million bodies lie nameless in unmarked and largely forgotten graves around the UK, bodies belonging to people who died in Britain's Mental Asylums. Some of those sites sit in plain sight in...

350 episodes! Shall we crack on with the next 350? Mick Coyle hosts a landmark edition of Mental Health Monday, as we celebrate 350 episodes of the award-winning podcast. Mick's been very busy producing programmes about Birth Trauma and International Women's Day in the last few weeks with his Hits Radio colleagues. Both programmes are a great listen so click on those links and check them out. Now...

When the Hub of Hope launched in 2017 - Mick Coyle had the exclusive story behind its birth with Jake Mills right here on Mental Health Monday. Skip forward seven years, and more than a quarter of a million people are accessing it every 12 months, connecting with local mental health groups, support services, and organisations within their community. Jake's back to talk about the scale of the Hub o...

Mick is joining in with Time to Talk Day 2025. Rosie Weatherley from MIND is his guest, as new data takes a look at the impact NOT talking about our mental health can have on ourselves, and young people in our lives. Rosie guides Mick through the first stages of opening up a conversation about mental health, and how to respond if someone tells you about difficult thoughts and feelings. There is si...

Mick Coyle marks Children's Mental Health Awareness Week with an important conversation about reading. He's joined by author of the "Sophie Says..." series Esther Marshall to talk about the value in sharing reading time with your children and the mental health benefits it can bring - to you AND your child. Data suggests 52% of parents use books as a way of talking about their child's thoughts and...

Mick is talking about young suicide on this week's edition of the podcast. His guests are supporting CALM's Missing Birthday project, by sharing their daughter's story. Evelyn was just 15 when she took her own life. Jenni and Jack speak to Mick as a new survey from the Campaign Against Living Miserably shows many parents wouldn't know where to turn if their children were struggling, and that the g...

Mick Coyle starts the year with the Mindfulness in Schools Project dropping by to discuss how mindfulness can make a difference to the lives of teachers, pupils and anyone who adopts mindful techniques. Teacher drop-out and pupil absence are huge issues in 2025. Mick is joined by Richard Burnett from the MISP to talk about the work they do in educational environments, and the impact it can have. T...

Mick is marking Christmas 2024 with a conversation with a returning guest to Mental Health Monday. Alice Hendy first appeared in Ep 195 , shortly after losing her brother Josh to suicide. She spoke of her plans for R;pple and how intercepting harmful searches can save lives using technology. R:pple has continued to expand, and Alice tells Mick its now intercepted nearly 70,000 harmful searches sin...

Award-winning journalist and broadcaster Mick Coyle is joined by former doctor, turned ambassador for Doctors in Distress , Emily Fulleylove. Emily is on the podcast to talk about her experience working for the NHS, and why she's so passionate about Doctors in Distress' urgent appeal to raise money to support their work in the coming year. DID works by providing peer-based talking and listening se...

Mick Coyle meets Ananya Sharma on this week's podcast. After arriving in London from India, thousands of miles away from friends and family, Ananya experienced loneliness - and wanted to do something about it. She opened the doors to her home to create the Home Café, where people in situations like hers could come together over a coffee and a cake. Ananya and Mick are speaking as a new survey by B...

It's time to look at the big picture when it comes to mental health in this country. To help Mick Coyle do just that is a new report from Centre for Mental Health and Mind, titled "The Big Mental Health Report: 2024" . It sets out the state of the country when it comes to mental health and paints a clear picture of the challenges we face - as well as offering recommendations on how to start solvin...

Journalist Mick Coyle is discussing the shocking statistics around suicide in the construction industry this week. Stats from a new "Lost City" campaign show there have been 7000 deaths by suicide by construction workers in the last decade. That's the equivalent of enough people to build 150,000 homes, three schools and a hospital - a so-called "Lost City". Mick meets Joe Baker from Second City Sc...

Journalist and Broadcaster Mick Coyle's award-winning Mental Health Monday Podcast turns its attention to life after suicide loss this week. Sadie is on the programme to tell her story. Tragically, Sadie's brother Alex took his own life in 2023, and she's been navigating a sense of grief and loss. We'll explore that journey, but also how her experiences have helped shape her own attitude to mental...

Presenter and Journalist Mick Coyle is joined by CEO of CALM Simon Gunning for World Mental Health Day 2024. This year's theme is mental health in the workplace, so Mick and Simon talk about the reasons businesses need to take this issue seriously - for social AND financial reasons. You can read more about the benefits of encouraging positive mental health in the workplace, as well as links to res...

Mick is talking about the results of a new survey which shine a light on our relationship with friendships. How many friends do you have? Data suggests while we have plenty of mates in younger years, those numbers soon start to fade away. So why do we struggle to make friends in later life? It was easy when we were children, but what is holding us back now? Author and Comedian Max Dickins wrote "B...

Journalist Mick Coyle is joined by Trevor Bygate, a former member of the armed forces turn mental health campaigner. Trevor lost his daughter Chloe to suicide in 2014, and now uses his experience to help and support others. He was also diagnosed with PTSD before leaving the army. He works with organisations like the Royal British Legion , Papyrus , and Cruse Bereavement Care , and has undertaken s...

Mick is joined by ex-professionall footballer turned mental health campaigner Clarke Carlisle. Clarke is back on the show to discuss his new role of COO of It's Mental, and how changing the conversation about mental health - with action to support it - is needed now more than ever. It follows the Darzi report into the state of the NHS, and the news of surging numbers of children and young people n...

Mick Coyle takes a look at the latest suicide figures for England and Wales with Paul Vittles ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day 2024. Released in 2024, figures show 6069 deaths were recorded in 2023, the highest rate since 1999. Paul has a long track record of working in the #zerosuicide community, and an incredible insight into how we currently deal with suicide in the UK, and what could be i...

Mick Coyle is joined by Mark Boyns from Opening Up Cricket following the tragic news of the death of England legend Graham Thorpe. Mick and Mark discuss how the family bravely shared the reason for his passing, and how that can be used as a way of opening up a conversation about mental health within the cricketing world and beyond. Podcast art © Alamy Opening Up was set up following the death of a...

Sarah Gustafson is Mick Coyle's guest on Episode 332 of Mental Health Monday. Sarah is founder of A.ur.tistic and a new project called Dopamine Rooms that she set up following her own experience of poor mental health, as well as late diagnosis on autism and ADHD. Sarah uses her love of art and teaching to help people explore their own thoughts and feelings, using her journey as inspiration to help...