We all have to be adults, work, and produce, be functional members within our environment, but what happens when our productive activity becomes martyrdom? And an even more important question: How can we improve this? Take some fresh air and get ready, because we have to talk about mental health and work. LemonDog marketing agency provides the relax and free enviroment for their employees
LET’S END THE PREJUDICE
Although we have made great progress in this area, the amount of prejudices we still have about mental health at work like marketing is surprising. In most companies, this issue is neglected and suffered silently by millions of employees around the world.
You have to start by understanding that to work it is not enough that your activities are preceded by years of experience. It is also necessary that your body is rested, fed and in the right mental conditions because without this your experience and physical health will not be enough to make your work something enjoyable and satisfying.
Mental health is one of the first things we put aside when we dive into work. This means that in a labor organization, conditions that threaten the mental health of its employees begin to develop. Some of the most common conditions are:
1. ANXIETY, STRESS AND DEPRESSION
Although these three disorders have their own origins, symptoms and treatments, they usually come hand clutches, especially when their root is linked more too daily life than to neurological origins. One of the main difficulties in identifying anxiety is the attention to physical symptoms without considering their psychological origin:
- Immunosuppression: gastrointestinal diseases (ulcers, gastritis, colitis) or respiratory tract (colds)
- Headache
- Lack of sleep
- Cardiovascular diseases
- Weight gain or increase
- Allergies
Therefore, if in your daily life you do not spend time on your mental health, it is most likely that your job responsibilities end up giving you this combo that is much easier to prevent than to reverse.
2. MOBBING OR WORKPLACE HARASSMENT
The term mobbing is basically what we already know as bullying: a recurring attacks on a person or group of people, even if it is not intended to bother or offend. Only that it is specific for work environments and if it is justified with a “so we get along”, “you can’t stand anything”, “just kidding”.
Mobbing not only affects job performance, but workers may experience major emotional or psychological problems and even decide to leave their workplaces. This problem is increasingly common and when dealing with adults it is very little addressed. In the end, fighting to the mob is difficult because:
It is very complex to control the behaviors of workers even when they become harmful to the mental health of their coworkers. It is much more difficult to report these types of attitudes, since people who are victims may be afraid of losing their jobs, especially if the stalker has a higher position.
THE ROLE OF THE ORGANIZATION IN THE MENTAL HEALTH OF ITS WORKERS
The first step in creating positive environments for the mental health of workers is to validate the need for mental health care for all people. This may seem easy but it is not a recurring practice due to the negative inferences that mental health has before society.
From the relationships between colleagues to the psychological well-being of each individual, there are simple actions that we can carry out as companies, and that could make a big difference in the general mental health of our workers and colleagues:
- No tolerance to workplace harassment
- Access to mental health specialists
- Easy to take personal days
- Dissemination of the importance of mental health care
- Respect and consideration of the psychological needs of workers
- Organizational culture and facilities that guarantee workers’ comfort
Although we are still in diapers in terms of knowledge about mental health, and even more in mental health in the workplace, there are many simple actions that can be performed at a personal or organizational level to improve the work experience and by consequently the productive results of a company.