Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) runs from Monday 15 to Sunday 21 May 2023. This year’s theme is anxiety, so we’re helping you get #BackToYourSenses with our sensory comfort kit for anxious times.

The Mental Health Foundation chose anxiety for this year’s theme because it’s one of the most common mental health conditions. Their recent survey has also discovered that anxiety about the cost of living is affecting a lot of people.

Here at MindWell, we decided we can all benefit from reminders to look after our wellbeing and manage stress and anxiety levels. Our sensory comfort kit has six themes to help you use your senses to create moments of calm, self-soothe and cope with overwhelming and anxious thoughts.

Explore our sensory comfort kit

There are links to online inspiration, ideas to try if you’re out and about, activities to do at home, useful tips and links to MindWell resources and pages. There’s also a resource you can download or print – you can use our ideas or personalise your comfort kit with sensory self-care that works for you.

Download our PDF resource

We’ve included ideas that are free or low cost to try and use the five senses or have a multi-sensory approach, so you can try activities you enjoy without worrying about cost, time or effort.

Please join us on Twitter @MindWellLeeds and share our messages.

We’ll be using the hashtags #BackToYourSenses #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek #MHAW23 and we’d love to hear how you use your senses to help you feel better!