Hundreds of naked swimmers ran into the sea at Druridge Bay in Northumberland at sunrise to celebrate the autumn equinox.

The North East Skinny Dip celebrated its 10th anniversary as swimmers of all shapes and sizes braved the North Sea.

The annual event has raised more than £80,000 for mental health charity MIND since people first stripped off and took the plunge in 2012.

Organiser Jax Higginson described the morning as a “celebration of life”.

New research published by the House of Commons has revealed the scale of the mental health crisis currently impacting rural areas.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) is conducting an inquiry into rural mental health and has published evidence submitted by the Countryside Alliance based on a survey conducted over Christmas.

The survey uncovered a broad spectrum of experiences of mental health and healthcare, and suggested that a key driver of ill-health was a lack of appreciation and respect for the rural way of life, from policymakers to individuals.

Attracting a total of 717 responses and over 1,700 individual comments, the survey was designed to elicit information that would be useful in addressing those questions being considered by EFRA that respondents would be well placed to comment on.

The inquiry is considering questions relating to the specific mental health challenges faced by rural communities, as well as mental health services and how well they meet the needs of rural populations.

The EFRA Committee will also look at suicide rates among agricultural workers and related occupations, and the effectiveness of prevention services.

A school has created a wellbeing garden for children and teachers whose mental health have been affected by the pandemic.

An unused courtyard at Chapel Allerton primary in Leeds has been transformed into an “oasis of calm”.

Community groups have worked alongside the school to create a space where pupils can relax and enjoy nature.

Headteacher Nicholas Sykes said the “mental and emotional wellbeing” of everyone at school was very important.

The garden will be used for mindful activities and lessons and also be a place that pupils and staff can got to for some quiet time.

Research has found the sounds of nature could help people’s mental health.

Data was collected from more than 7,500 people as part of the BBC series Forest 404 – a podcast that depicts a world without nature.

Participants reported sounds of birdsong provided relief from stress and mental fatigue, the study found.

The University of Exeter’s leading researcher, Alex Smalley, said lockdown helped people rediscover “the natural sounds around them”.

“Our findings suggest that protecting these experiences could be beneficial for both mental health and conservation behaviour, but they also provide a stark warning that, when it comes to nature, memories matter.

“If we hope to harness nature’s health benefits in the future, we need to ensure everyone has opportunities to foster positive experiences with the natural world today,” he said.

Participants listened to a range of environments, from English coasts and woodlands to the tropical rainforests in Papa New Guinea.

Therapeutic effects were reported from listening to landscape sounds such as breaking waves or falling rain.

When no wildlife sounds were played, the positive psychological benefits reduced, with participants showing motivation to protect the world’s ecosystems.

The study was a collaboration between the BBC Natural History Unit, BBC Radio 4, Exeter University, Bristol University and the Open University.

Walks taken by people in UK woodlands save £185m a year in mental health costs, according to a report.

Spending time in nature is known to boost mental health, but the report by Forest Research is the first to estimate the amount that woodlands save the NHS through fewer GP visits and prescriptions, reduced hospital and social service care, and the costs of lost days of work. The research also calculated that street trees in towns and cities cut an additional £16m a year from antidepressant costs.

The researchers believe the true savings are likely to be significantly higher. The report shows the importance of woodlands, they said, which the government is already aiming to expand to tackle the climate and wildlife crises.

The coronavirus pandemic has increased the prevalence of mental illness, and the NHS was already increasing its spending on treatments. This includes green social prescribing, where activities including nature visits are used to help sufferers. In polling by Forest Research, more than 90% of respondents said woodlands were important to them in reducing stress.

MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee are set to embark on a wide-ranging inquiry into rural mental health, it has been announced today.

Farming and other agriculture-related professions are known to face particular mental health challenges, with higher-than-average rates of depression and suicide. Improving the overall quality of mental health provision has been an increasing priority for the Government and the NHS in recent years.

The Chair of the EFRA Committee, Neil Parish MP, said:

“I’m pleased we’re starting this vital work. It’s important we talk openly about these issues and the help that is available. Mental health matters to us all. But for some people working in rural communities there are special factors that are often hidden in a world that sometimes feels like it is driven by those living in towns and cities.

“I’m a farmer myself and I know how people in our communities can sometimes suffer from isolation. That’s not to mention how insecure incomes, volatile weather and many other issues can be real stress factors.

“We hope to look into all of these subjects and more – then make recommendations about how the government can improve mental health provision in rural communities.

“I encourage everyone with a take on this subject – whether professional or personal – to take part in our inquiry. The ways to let us know your views are set out below.

An estimated 8 million people in England with mental health problems cannot get specialist help because they are not considered sick enough to qualify, NHS leaders have revealed as the toll of the pandemic is laid bare.

The figure, drawn up by mental health trusts and NHS Providers, underlines the gap between the growing need for care for anxiety, depression and other mental health problems, and the ability of the NHS to treat them.

It is in addition to the official waiting list for NHS mental health care, which stands at 1.6 million people, including 374,000 under-18s.

NHS England is understood to view the figure of 8 million, which is based on the known prevalence of mental health conditions and the thresholds dictating who gets access to treatment, as an accurate assessment of the number of those who are missing out on care because services are already so busy, especially given the Covid pandemic’s damage to mental wellbeing.

Thousands of pregnant women in England were denied vital help for their mental health because of the pandemic, analysis from leading psychiatrists shows.

In 2020-21, 47,000 were expected to access perinatal mental health services to help with conditions such as anxiety and depression during or after giving birth, but only 31,261 managed to get help in the most recent data for the 2020 calendar year only, according to analysis from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Up to one in five women have perinatal mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and other conditions occurring during pregnancy or in the first year after the birth of a child

About 11 percent of U.K. adults experienced deteriorating or consistently poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published online May 6 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Matthias Pierce, Ph.D., from the University of Manchester and colleagues tracked average mental health during the pandemic, characterised distinct mental health trajectories, and identified predictors of deterioration. The 12-item General Health Questionnaire was used to assess mental health in 19,763 adults.

The researchers observed a deterioration in average population mental health with onset of the pandemic, which did not begin improving until July 2020. Five distinct mental health trajectories were identified up to October 2020. Most participants had consistently good or very good mental health (39.3 and 37.5 percent, respectively). 

Twelve percent comprised a recovery group, who initially experienced a decline in mental health followed by improvement to prepandemic levels by October. For 7.0 percent, there was a steady deterioration in mental health during the pandemic, and for 4.1 percent, mental health declined initially and remained very poor throughout. 

The likelihood of having pre-existing mental or physical ill health, living in deprived neighbourhoods, and being non-White was increased for these two groups. Subsequent deterioration in mental health was predicted by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 infection, local lockdown, and financial difficulties.

Mental health problems associated with the Covid-19 pandemic are “likely to be profound and felt for many years”.

That is according to a newly-published research paper on suicide from the Northern Ireland Assembly.

It said there was “emerging” evidence the mental health of younger people in particular had been “disproportionately affected”.

The paper warned, though, conflating declining mental health with suicide and suicide risk should be avoided.

It said to do so could increase the risk of normalising suicidal behaviour.

The paper, produced by the assembly’s research and information service, said the “increased mental health burden associated with the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to be profound and felt for many years”.

“Restrictive measures put in place during the pandemic coupled with, for example, loneliness, job and income loss, bereavement, and the direct or indirect impacts of Covid-19 has led to increased levels of anxiety and had a negative effect on many people’s mental health,” it said.

“The pandemic has also been shown to affect subsections of the population differently, for example, front-line workers, those hospitalised by Covid or suffering post-infection, and those with fewer social or economic resources.

“There is also evidence emerging that the mental health of younger people in particular has been disproportionately affected.”