If you need help urgently:

Call the Samaritans - 24-hour confidential support for anyone experiencing distress or despair.
Contact your local GP; the can be very understanding and can also help with a referral to further treatment.
Get fast access to talking therapies - refer yourself directly without a GP referral here. If you are able to pay privately for talking therapies, you can choose one from this directory, by the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy.
Out of hours contacts – NHS: call 111.
If you feel you have nowhere else to go, go to A&E.
Hub of Hope - search by postcode and find mental health support near you.

Good books to read:

The Chimp Paradox - learning about the three brain systems and, the little amount of control you sometimes have over the chimp brain, can help you understand how the brain systems work together and why sometimes you can feel 'out of control', giving you useful and grounding insights that can help make you feel very normal.

The Power of Now - focuses on teaching the ability to stay more present in the moment, so as to reduce the level rumination (over thinking) that can often be the source of much stress and tension in the mind.

You Are Not Your Brain - so often we can believe that we are our thoughts are us; this book provides a different perspective that challenges the normal belief that you somehow own your thoughts and therefore they define you. You don't and they don't.

The End of Stress - where the author shares some useful insights on how most of what we worry about never actually happens; and when things do happen the impact of often much less intensified.

The Upward Spiral - how to better understand depression and then also useful ideas for how to navigate your way through it and out the other side.

Help and advice - this long list helps you find the people who can support you best. Whether you want to reach out by telephone, email or text - someone is waiting to help you.
Hear real stories - it might help to hear other people’s stories. Head Talks brings you short videos of real people who have struggled and overcome mental illness.
Books on prescription - avid readers and health experts alike have recommended these uplifting mental health books.
Apps to web tools - there are countless apps that aim to help you build better mental health; this list includes those that have been tested and endorsed by the NHS. Browse through categories like mental health, online communities, and sleep
Minds@Work - is a movement led by Geoff MacDonald and Georgie Mack and is aiming to remove the stigma of mental ill-health in the work place.