LAST week was Mental Health Awareness Week. You couldn’t have failed to notice; on Friday it received royal assent as on prime time television, the Duke of Cambridge shared his deepest feelings and darkest times.

He talked about the stress of working in the air ambulance service, dealing with the death of his mother at an early age and a military culture where (understandably perhaps) feelings tend to be put on one side.

You don’t have to be a prince, or experience public attention of bereavement as a child or work for the emergency services to understand how important receiving emotional support is to our mental wellbeing. We will all go through times of stress; we will all experience tragedy, the death of someone close, the news that devastates. We will all experience rejection, dashed hopes and shattered dreams. Feeling sad, low and dealing with disappointment is as much part of the human condition as being happy, uplifted and celebrating success. We will draw on wells of inner strength, on resilience learned through childhood, on our family, friends and those close to us, to help us through darker days. For most people for most of the time (including veterans from armed forces, former members of which are actually less prone to mental illness than the rest of us) these informal networks do a good job. Our friends and family laugh with us and cry with us.

As Rudyard Kipling put it: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same… yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.”

But we all know that for some people some triumphs and some disasters become more than they can bear – and the growing understanding that being unable to cope warrants specialist help and support, just as being physically ill requires specialist medical intervention, is welcome. In many instances the two are connected and social interventions may provide the most effective treatment.

Hard on the heels of this understanding, comes a second one: We can reduce the risk of becoming ill by taking action ourselves; refraining from smoking, taking exercise, looking out for what we eat and drink; we can also help our mental well-being in the same way. The space in which we live, what we eat, how we spend our time, the exercise we take, the ways we relax (see Footnotes opposite!) the ways we care for and look after those around us; all of these can have a beneficial effect on our mental health.

The prevalence of the ‘stiff upper lip’ has had its day becoming replaced by an acceptance that many of us will need help at some time. Accompanying that, is the realisation that there is much we can do ourselves to strengthen resilience and nurture our mental health and well-being as well. Prevention is always better than cure.