This week we are continuing with our topics that HR professionals are discussing. Today we are focussing on mental health and wellness
This is a topic that has been key for a number of years, but emphasis is growing more than ever before
We are going to be looking at:
- What is it?
- Steps to take to maintain mental health wellness
- What can HR do to support mental health in the workplace
What is it?
So, what exactly is mental health? It is a term that is frequently used in different contexts and settings.
Similar to employee engagement, there is no single, universally accepted definition.
A general definition of mental health refers to the health and functioning of the mind. It relates to an individual’s psychological and emotional well-being, and how we adjust and cope with the stresses we encounter as part of everyday life.
But, it is not a fixed condition, as the state of a person’s mental health can slide up and down that continuum throughout life. The fact that it is not fixed is a good thing, as it means that people can take charge of their own mental health, and move it up the spectrum towards a state of emotional wellness.
What does good look like?
Maybe it is easier to answer this question by looking at what it is not first:
- Living without problems
- Feeling jolly/happy 100% of the time
- Always having positive thoughts
- Being Mary Poppins – i.e., practically perfect in every way
These things are actually impossible to achieve – as humans we have a range of emotions and actually if everyone was like this then the world would be a pretty boring place. We need challenge in order to grow.
Having good mental health means:
- Possessing a high degree of self-awareness (recognising in yourself when things are not right and knowing how or what you want to improve)
- Being empathetic (the ability to be tuned into your own and others’ emotions and thoughts so that you can test them for accuracy)
- Developing your own wellness toolbox (full of strategies that you have used before that help you move up the continuum to optimise your wellbeing)
- Recognising the mind-body connection and that improving physical health (exercise releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy), also improves mental health (and vice-versa)
Mental health wellness is a key component in establishing (and sustaining) a healthy lifestyle.
The definition of mental wellness is the awareness of your own ability to cope with everyday stresses in life whilst maintaining the ability to function effectively when socialising, working, learning, and taking care of personal health.
Someone that fits the definition of mental wellness:
- Has a positive sense of wellbeing
- Feels hope
- Remains positive despite daily stresses and challenges
Overall, it depends on things like self-acceptance, autonomy, quality of relationships, capacity for growth and overall life satisfaction.
It is this last part that makes mental health wellness awareness so important in the workplace. We know through our extensive research into what creates a great experience at work, that there are 7 universal themes of experience (the MAGIC-CA model) and 3 of them impact mental health wellness:
- Meaning
- Appreciation
- Growth
- Impact
- Connection
- Challenge
- Autonomy
So, if people are not happy at work this is likely to impact in other areas of their life too.
If someone is suffering from a physical illness and they have good mental health wellness, they are likely to have a higher rate of recovery over someone who has poor mental wellness. This is because mental wellness provides the ability to cope with and work through stresses and frustrations.
Steps to take to maintain mental health wellness
We have looked at what it is and why it is important. If an individual can control their place and improve it on the continuum, there are steps that we can take to maintain our mental health wellness.
The achieving and maintaining of it does take patience and dedication. It is a skill to learn it and can be more challenging for some than for others.
Everyone of us is unique and so our journey towards wellness will be different, but the healthy place have created some tips which can be incorporated into your wellness plan to help you:
Take care of your body
Exercising is great for mental health as it helps burn anxious energy and helps muscle tension
Maintain a healthy diet
Eating processed foods or foods that are high in fats can regularly impact mental health
Take enough breaks during the day
This is something that many people have struggled with during and post pandemic, but running at 100% all day will cause exhaustion, which can make you anxious and emotional. Taking breaks will help you handle stress and keep a healthy mind
Learn new skills
By stimulating your brain to learn new skills this will help promote mental health wellness
Stay connected
Spend quality time with family & friends as this will help maintain longer term mental health wellness
Get some sleep
This is a major component. It prevents fatigue and help you face the day ahead, avoid blue light devices such as phone and tablets before you go to bed as well as any drink that is likely to stimulate the brain, as this will increase sleeplessness
Meditation
It is what you need – Meditation can help relax the body and the mind. Even one minute of meditation in the middle of the day can help.
Breathe in, breathe out
Deep breathing helps the body and mind stay healthy as it provides oxygen to the brain and muscles, relieving tiredness and fatigue as well as stress and tension.
What can HR do to support in the workplace?
1. Promote company-wide resources – it may seem a simple thing, but this quick win can help. Remind people of what is available to them and ensure to include it as part of any onboarding process. Most organisations have a form of employee assistance programme (EAP). This is a voluntary, work-based programme that offers amongst other things mental health assessments, short term counselling, referrals to specialists and follow up services for employees.
2. Host support training – many organisations now have more people who are trained mental health first aiders as they do first aiders. These first aiders support people in the organisation with mental health problems as well as encourage conversations to reduce the stigma and bust the myths associated with mental health, to create a culture of understanding and support.
3. Ensure that there is a healthy work life balance – enable through hybrid and flexible working (we will be doing a future blog on these topics in the coming weeks), for people to work when, where, and how they want to. This will help create that sense of autonomy (which as we know, is one of the areas that makes for a great experience at work as well as enable mental health wellness), and readdress the imbalance seen through the pandemic and decrease the feeling of burn out.
4. Prioritize it – review what is already available to people, and look at what more people need, by talking about what matters to people from a mental health wellness perspective.
If you want to hear more about this, or get a copy of our free Wellbeing Toolkit, then we would love to hear from you.
@ Karen
