Mental Health in the Workspace: From Surviving to Thriving

How do you take care of your mental health as a working professional?

Whether you’re a 9-5 corporate worker, shift worker or a savvy social entrepreneur, the state of our mental health can have an impact on our productivity and wellness. The environment in which we work in can also have an impact on how we are mentally at work - having a supportive working environment can be great, on the other hand, environments that cause you stress can be detrimental.

In recent year, clubhouse and Twitter spaces -an audio, podcast-like, live audience thing has taken up space in our worlds. I recently joined a Twitter space #Blackintheworkplace and I was privy to many stories on how line managers can either make or break you.

Whilst entrepreneurship and owning your business can be lucrative, not everybody wants that and some of us are happy working our standard 9-5 careers and making progress that way. Mental Health and Mental well-being in the workplace should be a priority of companies. How can anyone be productive if their mental health is not in a good space?

Sure, we all have our bad days, but sometimes other members can make it significantly worse.

Doing your job is the bare minimum. Having a workplace that supports you to thrive however is important. When your mental health is affected by your workplace environment, measures need to be put in place, or consider finding a new role where you will be supported.

So how do we go from surviving to thriving?

Set Boundaries

If you weren’t taught how to develop healthy boundaries as a child, this can be a tricky one. Sometimes we can go above and beyond for companies, whilst neglecting our mental health in the process. Setting boundaries are beneficial to your mental health. Whilst it can be good to help out here and there, over working yourself will lead to burn out and we don’t want that.

Setting boundaries in the workplace can look like; only checking your emails at a certain time, not responding to phone calls after a certain time, taking on a work load you can manage, asserting yourself towards your colleagues, speaking up for yourself etc.

Take your Annual Leave

When your body and mind needs to rest, it will tell you. I once complentated at a previous job role if I should take annual leave or not as I had just returned from the Christmas break and I did not want to let down my clients. However, I experienced a few traumatic events and ended up dissociating, and as a result my mental health suffered.

Book your annual leave, the business won’t end up in flames, and if it does then so be it.

Document events that happen at work

Lets say you have a pesky manager at work and they’ve been accusing you of all sorts, or they threw you under a bus in a meeting, its important to document these events - the date, time, the location and how you felt at the time. If you need to involve HR, you’ll have some evidence to show.

Keep a paper trail

This relates to the point above.

Develop coping mechanisms

Whether its breathing techniques or talking a walk around the block, it can be helpful to develop strategies to manage your emotions.

Know your worth

We all want to be valued for not only what we bring to the work table but for who we are. Go where you are valued.