The 3am checklist
Six questions to run through when you've woken up and your brain has decided now is the time. Designed to be read on a phone, in the dark.
Open →Resources Hub
Something to hold onto
between sessions.
Short reads, guided exercises and printable one-pagers. Written plainly, for men who don't want a three-hundred-page workbook. Use them whenever — you don't have to be a client.
Start here
Four minutes, right now.
If your chest is tight or your head is going, this is the fastest thing that works. Follow the circle. In as it grows, hold, out as it shrinks.
It isn't magic and it won't fix the thing that's bothering you. What it does do is take the edge off enough to think — which is usually all you need to make the next decision a better one.
Breathe in
Repeat for four rounds. Longer if you've got it.
The library
Pick whatever you need today.
Everything here takes under ten minutes. Nothing asks you to keep a feelings diary unless you want to.
Box breathing, guided
Follow the circle in the van before you go in. No music, no whale sounds, no one telling you to visualise a meadow.
Start →When anger is actually exhaustion
Why the short fuse usually isn't about the thing that lit it, and what to look at instead before you apologise again.
Open →How to say "I'm not okay" to someone
Actual words you can borrow, for a partner, a mate or a manager. Including what to do if they respond badly.
Open →Five minutes to reset a bad day
A printable one-pager for the glovebox or the toolbox. Five steps, no equipment, works in a car park.
Open & print →Drinking a bit more than you'd like
An honest look at the line between winding down and self-medicating, without any lectures or units-per-week tables.
Open →The pressure map
A guided exercise to lay out everything currently sitting on you, then work out which parts are actually yours to carry.
Open & print →Getting your sleep back
What actually shifts long-term bad sleep, in rough order of how much it matters — for men who've already tried "just put your phone down".
Open →Who to call, and when
A plain list of UK services — crisis lines, NHS routes, debt, bereavement, addiction and men's groups — with what each one is actually for.
See the list →More on the way
New tools land here first.
Join the list and you'll get each new resource as it's written, plus one short letter a month. Nothing else, and one click to leave.
Free, 24/7 where stated
If you need someone tonight.
These are the numbers worth saving in your phone before you need them. None of them will judge you, and none of them need you to be in crisis before you're allowed to call.
Samaritans
Free, 24 hours a day, every day. For anything at all — you don't have to be suicidal to ring them.
CALM
The Campaign Against Living Miserably. 5pm to midnight, every day, with a webchat as well.
Shout
Text SHOUT to 85258
Free, confidential, 24/7 text support. Useful when you can't face saying it out loud.
NHS 111
111, option 2
For urgent mental health support and access to local crisis teams, 24 hours a day.
Your GP
Ask for a double appointment
Say it's about your mental health when you book. It gets you more time and the right clinician.
Emergency
If your life or someone else's is at immediate risk, this is the right call to make. Always.
Hido Coach is not a crisis service and sessions are not monitored out of hours.