Kate Middleton and Prince William Encourage People to Take Care of Their Mental Health During Surprise Radio Appearance
Kate Middleton and Prince William participated in a discussion to highlight World Mental Health Day. The royal family members spoke about the importance of mental health. Here’s what the Prince and Princess of Wales said.
Prince William says mental health must be a priority
The Prince and Princess of Wales were guest interviewers on BBC Radio 1. During a show called Newsbeat, they led a discussion about the importance of taking care of your mental health. They mentioned their Heads Together campaign, which was launched in 2017 to encourage people to talk about mental health.
Prince William says it’s important to keep an eye on your mental health. “Mental health gets pushed way down on the priority list,” says William during the radio show. “And we’ve got to find a way of balancing that out so mental health is always the current thing going on in the background. Because if we can’t look after ourselves, we’re not going to tackle all the issues that we feel we have to on a day-to-day basis.
Kate Middleton wants to remove the stigma from discussing mental health
The Princess of Wales notes the subject of mental health “tends to have negative connotations.” She says her goal when starting the Heads Together campaign was to help remove the stigma.
“One of the messages we were trying to encourage is that everyone has mental health in the same way as their physical health,” says Kate during the show. “You have to look after it in the same way we go to the gym. We need to look after and nurture our mind as well.”
Prince William recommends a mental health resource ‘toolbox’
Prince William talks about how it’s necessary to have a “toolbox” of resources one can go to when in need of assistance with mental health.
“I liken a lot of the work we’ve done on mental health and listening to those people talk about it to a toolbox,” says William. “A lot of people don’t realize what they need until it actually comes along. You can be living one life one minute and something massively changes, and you realize you don’t necessarily have the tools or the experience to be able to tackle that.”
Educational and child psychologist Abigail Miranda says one important tool to have in this toolbox is communication. “To have in your toolbox communication would be key,” says Miranda. “
Young people shared their mental health stories
Kate and William spoke to four people who are making a difference in the area of mental health. Psychology student Antonio Ferreira shared his mental health journey. He told the prince and princess mental health wasn’t something that was discussed when he was growing up. He also didn’t talk about it with his friends until recently. “We were all struggling in silence,” he says.
Ferreira says his main role models were his parents. He saw how strong and resilient his father was, and he wanted to be like him. However, he now realizes it is possible to overdo it when it comes to resilience.
“It’s a thing I call over-resilience,” says Antonio. “We’ve been made to be so over-resilient that we push away those vulnerabilities and weaknesses. We don’t accept them and then there’s a stigma and shame around it.”
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