Samaritans Bournemouth & District are pleased to announce that Dr. Andrew Mayers, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Bournemouth University, has agreed to be a patron of our branch. Through Dr. Mayer’s patronage we hope to raise awareness of the invaluable work that Samaritans perform in our local community, to reach out to the most vulnerable people in our local community, and to build links between Bournemouth University and Samaritans Bournemouth & District.
Dr. Mayers and Samaritans believe in the value of allowing people who are distressed, depressed, despairing, or suicidal, the space and the opportunity to freely express and explore their emotions in confidence, and without judgement.
Samaritans and Bournemouth University are in discussions about Samaritans having a presence in a Well-Being unit at Bournemouth University, to provide emotional support to staff and to students at the Bournemouth Campus.
Samaritans Bournemouth & District and Bournemouth University will be issuing joint press releases and leaflets throughout the year that provide advice from mental health professionals at Bournemouth University, focussing on different aspects of feelings of distress, depression, despair, or suicide within vulnerable people.
The first of these will focus on sleep.
A lack of sleep is often associated with feelings of distress, depression, despair, or suicidal feelings, and the quality of a persons sleep can affect their emotional state. Dr. Andrew Mayers of Bournemouth University provides the following advice:
- promoting good sleep
- how to cope with problems getting to sleep
- informing people about how sleep, distress and poor mood can interact.
For example, if people are already seeing their GP about stress they also need to tell the doctor if they are sleeping poorly. GPs often prescribe medications to improve mood and anxiety, without considering the effect that some of these have on sleep.
