Mental Health at Sea

A private, offline toolkit for life on board, written for seafarers by a seafarer. It is not a medical or psychological service. It does not diagnose, score or treat anything. It offers techniques that many people find useful, with their evidence and their limits stated honestly, and it always shows the way to a real person.

BREATHE
Seven guided breathing patterns, from the physiological sigh to box breathing and coherent breathing, each with a slow circle to follow, a note on when it helps, what the evidence says, and where it stops being the right tool. Under 45 seconds from opening the app to the first breath.

FIVE DOORS
Body: sleep first, fatigue, exercise, the kit list. Mind: breathing, meditation sized for a watch system, journalling, Zen and Stoic practice, the dichotomy of control. People: the principles that matter on a ship, negotiation techniques with worked shipboard scripts, conflict, calling home, the new joiner. Work: the Eisenhower workload card as a way of talking upward, your rights under the MLC and STCW, the formal route for a grievance. Help: the charities and services that already exist, chaplains, the ITF, the company's own provision, and how to ask.

NEED TO TALK NOW?
The crisis card is two taps from every screen and works offline: SeafarerHelp (ISWAN), free, confidential, 24 hours a day in your language; TMAS through the Master; the Sailors' Society Crisis Response Network; the ITF; the chaplaincies. What to do if it is you, and the eight-step response if it is someone else, quoted from the International Chamber of Shipping's published guidance. Help-line details carry the date they were verified.

YOUR OWN TOOLS, ON YOUR OWN PHONE
The contract log: one line and one word a night, in log-book format. The workload card: four boxes, one conversation. The two-column sheet: what is yours to control and what is not. Nothing leaves the phone, nothing is analysed, and you can delete it all at any time.

YOUR TRACK
Short reading lists for the places the research shows the dips are: the Master and Chief Engineer, the first month on board, the long contract, the mid-career squeeze, and women at sea.

WHAT IT IS NOT
No account, no login, no adverts, no analytics. No streaks, points or notifications. No chatbot. No questionnaires. Where a cause is structural, it says so and points to the formal route rather than offering coping as the answer.

Created by Anindya Banerjee, www.anindyabanerjee.co.uk