Hello and a very warm welcome to another edition of the Lizzo Wellbeing Show, the weekly

podcast that is jam packed with wellness and wisdom that you can trust.

And today's episode is on that vitally important topic of our mental health.

Ben West is an activist and campaigner who's been at the forefront of supporting young people

with their mental health. Ever since his 15-year-old brother Sam took his own life in 2018.

Now Ben West has written about his experiences in this book, Could Save Your Life, which

is out now. And as a warning, in this episode we will be discussing mental health and

suicide in a very frank and open way. So if this conversation isn't for you right now,

there are plenty of other episodes in the series that are lighter in tone.

Ben, a very warm welcome to you. And I actually know about you through my daughter,

Brella, who I think connected with you over Instagram while at university when she was doing some

work with mental health awareness herself during lockdown.

Yeah, hi, Liz. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, I think I have an own

umbrella for like a year around that and obviously spoken to her quite a lot about

mental health particularly around universities and support that's on offer in universities

as sort of part of what what I'm doing with young people around around them and to health.

Well, congratulations firstly on the book. And you mentioned in the introduction to the book

that writing it was clearly something that you had never expected to happen.

How was the process of writing it? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think it's quite a

funny joke actually with my friends at the moment because I was the least likely person in my

friend group to have become an author. I was given extra English lessons at school. I was told

not to bother sitting my English exams at school because I was always considered to be behind in

...