Looking After Your Mental Health in the Workplace – Top Tips
The workplace can be a challenging environment, and many people struggle to keep their mental health in check while they go about their jobs. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence and has a detrimental effect on productivity and job satisfaction. There are degrees of varying mental health issues, these can range from mild anxiety issues or complex mental requirements where assisted or supported living is required.
Learning how to look after your mental health in the workplace can be a struggle, but you can do things. Let’s look at some of what you can do for yourself.
- Identify Harmful Situations and People
The first thing you can do to try and look after your mental health is to look for the harmful situations and people in your workplace. Once you identify them, you can take steps to mitigate their impacts.
Harmful situations are everywhere – it could be an interaction, a coworker, or the way you do a specific task that is causing you distress. Finding these triggers is vital for making positive changes.
- Maintain a Work/Life Balance
When the workplace gives you a reason to be stressed and upset, you need time to step away from that environment and focus on yourself for a while. Many people don’t have an effective work-life balance, and it can harm their mental health.
It would help if you made sure that when you leave the office at the end of every working day, you leave the work there. Trying to maintain one eye on your job while relaxing is a recipe for disaster. Instead, focus on taking care of yourself and doing things that make you happy – indulge in your hobbies, spend time with loved ones, or unwind.
- Raise Concerns With Your Boss
If you’re not happy in the work environment you have, and you can’t make any meaningful changes, then you need to consider talking to a manager and asking them for some support. After all, it’s their role to help.
A good manager will have a responsibility to create a suitable work environment, and if a process or person is causing you significant distress, then it is their job to help where they can. Try speaking to them about what’s going on and see what they suggest.
- Practice Mindfulness
When we allow the world’s concerns to invade our lives – as is often the case with work – we lose track of a calm, centred outlook. This is harmful to mental health.
Try practicing mindfulness each day. Whether this is meditation before you go to work or to try to journal your thoughts after work, there are things you can do to remain mindful.
Final Thoughts
Looking after your mental health in the workplace can be tricky, and there are a lot of situations that make it worse. There’s no doubt that a workplace is a challenging place, and you need to take proactive steps to protect yourself.
Focusing on yourself and establishing clear boundaries in the workplace is vital for helping your mental health thrive. It is an ongoing process, and you may need to adjust your strategies as you go, but learning how to protect yourself is vital.
