The Proper Mental Podcast

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 91 with Chris Glasson & Stu Whiffin! Chris & Stu are the hosts of Hardcore Listing, a weekly podcast where they get (trick) a huge variety of guests to pick their top 5’s on a chosen subject. One thing that I love about their show is that, in amongst the insults, offensiveness and general stupidity, they regularly end up talking about some really challengin...

Proper Mental was recently nominated at The British Podcast Awards! This is the submission clip that I submitted to the judges and below is the description that went with it. For a completely independent podcast like mine to even be nominated is incredible really and although I didn’t win, I did get to have a day out to London with my wife and on the whole, it was a positive experience and I’m rea...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 90 part 2 with Jay Wheeler, a former soldier and street artist who creates under the name Love Art Global. After 15 years in the army and multiple tours overseas, Jay was medically discharged with a diagnosis of PTSD. In part 2, Jay’s story carries on from where we left off in the previous episode. We chat about Jay discovering art and how that started to bring him...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 90 part 1 with Jay Wheeler, a former soldier and street artist who creates under the name Love Art Global. After 15 years in the army and multiple tours overseas, Jay was medically discharged with a diagnosis of PTSD.  In part 1 of this episode Jay takes me through his childhood in Wolverhampton and the traumatic upbringing that led him to joining the army. We talk...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 89 with Kitty & Alex Tait who are the owners of The Orange Bakery and the authors of Bread Song. Kitty started to struggle with her mental health around the age 14 to the point where she had to stop going to school. As well as contact with CAHMS, her family tried all sorts of things to support and distract her but nothing seemed to help until she watched her father...

Welcome to episode 88 with Daragh Fleming, a writer, poet and mental health advocate from Cork, Ireland. Daragh started talking and writing about mental health after his own experiences with mental ill health.  He found that writing allowed him to process his thoughts and feelings in a positive way and this led to him setting up the award nominated blog Thoughts Too Big. The roots of Daragh’s own...

Welcome to episode 87 with Ben West who is a mental health activist, campaigner, speaker and author. Ben was only 17 when he lost his younger brother to suicide.  This event has driven him to become one of the most active campaigners in the U.K. He has raised thousands of pounds through his Walk to Talk project and regularly speaks at schools and events to raise awareness about mental health. Most...

Welcome to episode 86 with Jimmy Wightman, a meditation teacher and the founder of Delve Deep Meditation School. He began his journey in to meditation while searching for something to help with chronic insomnia that he started to experience when his party lifestyle caught up with him. This journey has taken him around the world to study meditation in many different forms and becoming a meditation...

Welcome to episode 85 with Maty Sene Carpenter who recently featured in the Channel 4 show, The Simpler Life. The premise of the show was to see how 24 people would get on when they stepped out of their modern lives to spend 6 months living as a traditional Amish community. Maty and the rest of the participants moved on to a 16 hectare farm in Devon, without gas or electricity, and farmed the land...

Welcome to episode 84 with Chris Young, who is an author, podcaster and mental health advocate. Chris spent many years working as a social worker but had to leave his dream job after his mental health declined to the point of crisis on more than one occasion. During this time Chris would experience long periods of depression, disassociation, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.  He would eventually be...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 83 with Marise Gaughan, an author and comedian extraordinaire. Marise was 23 when her Dad died by suicide.  She dealt with his death, and everything that led to it, by leaving Dublin and heading to Amsterdam and then L.A, leaving a trail of self-destruction in her wake. Her struggle with grief and mental ill health would eventually lead her to AA and a psych ward i...

Welcome to episode 82 with Gary Mansfield who is an artist, curator and host of The Ministry of Arts podcast. In his early twenties, Gary was sentenced to 14 years in prison after £4.2 million worth of heroin was planted in the boot of his car. While serving his time Gary joined an art class and it would completely change the direction of his life. He wrote to several high-profile artists while st...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 81 with Laura Belbin from Knee Deep in Life! Laura is a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and the woman you avoid eye contact with in the playground.  She is also an author, blogger and the content creator behind Knee Deep in Life. Laura uses her blog to talk about parenting, mental health, female empowerment and body acceptance all while showing what real life actua...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 80 with SK Shlomo who is an award-winning beatboxer, DJ and theatre maker.                                                                                                                                                   They are a classically trained percussionist who started drumming at the age of 8 and discovered the art of beatboxing in his teens. They would go...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 79 with Dr Rosalind Watts, a clinical psychologist who was the clinical lead on the Depression Study, which compared Psilocybin with a standard anti-depressant medication. The study was featured in the documentary ‘Magic Medicine’ which is currently streaming on Netflix. Dr Watts has been named as one of the 50 Most Influential People in Psychedelics as well as one...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 78 with Jon Salmon, a mental health campaigner who’s working to make the world a more understanding and empathic place for anyone experiencing mental illness. He has worked for Time to Change and Heads Together, he is a director of Speakers Collective, a trustee for Let’s Talk About Loss and the co-founder of Byte Entertainment. Jon lost his father to suicide as a...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 77 with Bon Collins who is a strength and weightlifting coach, endurance athlete and body neutrality expert. Bon spent the first 20 years of her life on some sort of diet but it was only when she started to address how she felt about herself that she able to make changes to her health. She grew up in a cult and it was only after leaving at the age of 18 that she ha...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 76 with UK Men’s Sheds! UK Men’s Sheds provide support and guidance to individuals and groups across the UK in starting and managing Men’s Sheds. They raise awareness of the social and health benefits of Men’s Sheds in reducing isolation, loneliness and in empowering local communities. There are almost 600 community driven, member led venues in the UK under the ‘Sh...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 75 with Satveer Nijjar, a self-harm expert and mental health advocate. She is the founder of ‘Attention Seekers? Training’ and delivers self-harm awareness training nationally to professionals, parents, carers and students. Self-harm is thought of as a scary term which makes people feel afraid to talk about it and Satveer’s work has a strong focus on removing the s...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 74 Josh Connolly is a resilience coach, breath work facilitator and one of the U.K’s most influential mental health advocates. Josh struggled with alcohol addiction from a young age but it was only once he gave up drinking that he started to struggle to the point of planning his own death.  A chance moment with his children turned him around and he started to rebui...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 73 with BAFTA winning documentary maker and TV personality Gail Porter! Gail shot to fame in the 90’s through children’s TV shows including Live and Kicking, Fully Booked and Top of the Pops and she has been a regular feature in the media since then. Throughout this time Gail struggled with her mental health and is now a well-known advocate and speaker. In 2020 Gai...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 71 with Jonny Benjamin, who is the CEO of Beyond, a young person’s charity that raises money and gives out grants to help other organisations and schools that are underfunded or underutilised. He is also an award-winning mental health campaigner, speaker, author and vlogger and in 2017 was awarded an MBE. Jonny is known for his book and documentary film, The Strang...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 70 with my guest Juliette Burton, an award-winning comedian who is also an ambassador for Rethink Mental Illness. At one point in her life, Juliette was diagnosed with 13 different mental health conditions and over the years she has battled OCD, anxiety disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety disorder, anor...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 69 with Gavin Thorpe and Ben Akers from Talk Club! Talk Club is a talking and listening club for men that is also described as a behaviour-changing movement. It all started after one of the Founders, Ben Akers, lost his childhood best friend to suicide in 2014.  Struggling to process his grief, Ben set out to make ‘Steve’, a documentary about male mental health. Ta...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 68 with Ben Coomber who is a nutritionist, speaker and coach. He has worked in the fitness industry for 14 years as a personal trainer, coach and nutritionist as well as hosting the Ben Coomber Radio Podcast. I reached out to Ben after reading one of his social media posts about his experience with depression as a result of long Covid which, at the time of recordin...