This is the abstract of a paper delivered at the 2018 European Association of Archaeologists conference (Barcelona). It was part of a session called ‘Archaeological uncertainty; a journey through the ruins of a discipline’. This session highlighted ways that the disciplinary landscape of archaeology has changed over the past 30 years, and both the advances and uncertainties that have resulted. My paper addressed issues of mental health and wellbeing, both of professionals working in the heritage sector and in the communities that the sector seeks to serve. A personal ‘take’ on the contemporary wellbeing agenda, the paper draws on my role as a Mental Health First Aider and concludes with some of my hopes for an increasingly instrumentalised archaeology.