The Proper Mental Podcast

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 67 and I’m joined by Sanisha Wynter, a mental health advocate and Tedx Speaker and Inclusion Consultant who works in the charity sector and advocates for marginalised people in the workplace. Sanisha and I chat about her diagnosis of BPD and how she had to learn to talk about it, we chat about how mental health is viewed in different communities and we chat about t...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 66, my guest this week is Joseph Bates, the co-founder and CEO of Halen, an app that is working to change how people view mental health and wellbeing. Joe lost his father at a young age which led him to join the military as a sniper.  This would take him on back-to-back tours of Afghanistan with UK Special Forces. By his mid-twenties he was working in The City in a...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 65 with Natasha Devon MBE! Natasha is a writer, campaigner and broadcaster who has dedicated her life to promoting positive mental health, body image, gender & social equality. She tours schools, colleges, universities and events throughout the world, delivering talks as well as conducting research on mental health, body image, gender and social equality. Natasha i...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 64 with Andy Chambers, the founder of Born Human, a holistic mental health consultancy that is working to improve paternal mental health in the workplace. Andy has personally experienced the impact of Post Natal Depression and has a background in the corporate environment and these combined helped him to realise that there is more needed to be done to support paren...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 63, this week’s guest is Susie Weaver, a campaigner, advocate and blogger. Susie is a passionate advocate for young people’s mental health, in 2019 she launched the S.H.I.T. Tee campaign, with the main message for young people being that it’s ok to feel shit, but it’s a lot more ok if you don’t feel alone. 100% profit from every single sale goes to Young Minds, rai...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 62 with my guest James Withey, an author, editor and public speaker. He has written 5 books about mental health and mental illness and his own experiences with anxiety, depression, suicide and anorexia. James is also the founder of The Recovery Letters project which publishes letters from people recovering from depression, addressed to people experiencing it.  The...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 61 with my guest Zoe Burnett, an author, speaker and mental health advocate who is known as The Barefoot Rebel. In 2018, Zoe was diagnosed with Atypical Anorexia Nervosa although she had been struggling with this for many years before being diagnosed and it very nearly claimed her life. For a long time Zoe was deemed “not slim enough” to have an eating disorder and...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 60 with my guest, Lee Pennington who is the Director of The Open Door Charity, a multi-award winning mental health resource that is delivered by young people, for young people. The Open Door is one of the largest independent providers of talking therapies in Merseyside and one of the most progressive organisations of its kind in the UK. They offer free, immediate a...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 59 with my guest Michael Byrne who is the Founder of LETs (Lived Experience Trauma Support) and one of the UK’s leading Mental Health speakers. Michael established LETs after overcoming many traumatic events in his life including child abuse, the violent murder of his father, losing twins through miscarriage and surviving The Clutha disaster in 2013. He suffered a...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 58 with my guest Natasha Naomi Rea, an actress, author and Bipolar UK ambassador. Tasha is diagnosed with type 2 Bipolar and has been living with this illness from a young age.  Her acting credits include Coronation Street and Emmerdale and she is currently writing, producing and staring in her own short film that has mental illness firmly at the centre. She is als...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 57 and my guest this week is Rachel Philpotts, a registered nutritionist, health science writer and mental health expert. Prior to becoming a nutritionist, Rachel enjoyed a successful 13-year commercial career. However, her career-girl lifestyle caught up with her in her 30s and left her a shadow of her former self. It took total burnout to make her realise somethi...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 56 and my guest this week is Nick Littlehales, an author and coach who specialises in sleep. He is considered the world lead in this area, working with the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Team Sky and a host of sports clubs and teams at the highest level. He can now add being a guest of Proper Mental to that impressive list! Nick and I chat about his work an...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 53 and my guest today is Johanna Basford OBE! Johanna Basford OBE is an illustrator and a pioneer of colouring books for adults, having sold over 21 million copies of her books worldwide. In 2016 she was appointed an OBE for services to art and entrepreneurship and in 2019 she broke the world record for the largest drawing by an individual.  She has also worked sev...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 54 with my guest Antonio Ferreira, an activist, speaker and lived experience consultant. He works as a volunteer for several mental health charities, sharing his story and experiences as part of his mission to eliminate stigma and misconception of mental illness within racialised communities. At the age of 16 he spent 2 years as an inpatient on a mental health ward...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 53 and my guest is Catherine Benfield! Catherine Benfield is an OCD advocate, blogger and speaker. Cath was diagnosed with OCD at the age of 32 although she had lived with distressing, intrusive thoughts since her childhood. She started her blog, Taming Olivia, as a way of processing and managing her mental health and it is now is used as a concept around the world...

Welcome to a very special, Christmas episode of the Proper Mental podcast! Tis the season that not everybody enjoys, for a lot of different reasons.  I wanted to put something out at Christmas that might give someone a little lift if they needed one, even if it’s just for 5 minutes.  Sometimes 5 minutes can make all the difference. I reached out to advocates, campaigners, authors, speakers and pod...

Welcome to episode 52 and my guest this week is Chris Hemmings! Chris is a public speaker & workshop facilitator focussing on healthy masculinity.  He is also a trainee psychotherapist and the author of ‘How to be a Man’ a book about masculinity and the damage caused by masculine ideals. We chat about what it means to be a man and how this causes men to struggle and stops men asking for help. We c...

The Proper Mental Live Show was recorded in front of an audience on 9th November 2021 to raise money for The Open Door Centre, a local young person’s support service. You can learn more about them here Open Door Charity - Shaping Change In total we raised enough money to fund 103 hours of their peer-to-peer support programme! My second guest for the evening was Chris Kirkland! Chris is a football...

The Proper Mental Live Show was recorded in front of an audience on 9th November 2021 to raise money for The Open Door Centre, a local young person’s support service. You can learn more about them here Open Door Charity - Shaping Change In total we raised enough money to fund 103 hours of their peer-to-peer support programme! My first guest for the evening was Rachel Brown! Also know an ‘The Forre...

Welcome to episode 49 and my guest this week is Gabriel Nathan! Gabe Nathan is a suicide awareness advocate and writer. He is also the Editor in Chief at OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication devoted to publishing first person essays and producing original documentary films about mental health, empowerment, and change. Gabe lives with anxiety and depression, and has struggled with many aspe...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 48! My guest this week is Stevie Georgina! Stevie Georgina is a vlogger who chats about arts, crafts & crochet and the power they have when it comes to wellbeing. She started using crochet and arts and crafts to improve and manage her mental health after being hospitalised in 2017. Stevie experienced psychosis as a symptom of undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disor...

I recently had the absolute pleasure of little a catch up with Scroobius Pip! For Black Friday, Pip turned his website into a donation site to raise money for the homeless charity Shelter and made himself available on zoom for anyone who donated! I threw in a few quid and jumped on to say hello and ask him a question about mental health.  I was over the moon when he said he’d heard of my podcast!...

Episode 47 with Dr Ellie Harper is out Today! My guest this week is Dr Ellie Harper! She is also known as The Human Flow Psychologist, and she uses a revolutionary approach to psychology and mental health, designed to help you discover who you are and how to understand your own uniqueness. Ellie’s journey has not been a straightforward one to say the least and she takes me through her story and ex...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 46! My guest this week is Dr Brendon Stubbs! Dr. Brendon Stubbs is a clinical-academic physiotherapist with an interest in physical activity & mental health. He has published over 650 academic papers in several leading journals across multiple scientific fields and co-authored the first evidence-based book on the use of physical activity for the treatment of people...

Welcome to Proper Mental episode 45! This week I’m joined by Bethany Rose! Bethany Rose is a poet, author and educator. She is a Tedx Speaker and her poem PINK has been viewed 5 million times after being shown on BBC3. I connected with Beth after watching her Ted Talk which is called ‘Breaking Out if Concrete’ and is about her battle with depression.  It is one of the most powerful talks I’ve ever...