The workplace can be challenging, with long hours, high stress, and demanding workloads. These pressures can take a toll on our mental health, leading to burnout, anxiety, and other issues.
According to The State of Workplace Mental Health in the US in 2021, 76% of employees reported experiencing at least one symptom of mental health issues in the past year.
Due to these mental health challenges, 50% of full-time employees have left previous roles, with the percentages rising to 68% for millennials and 81% for Gen Z. Younger generations of employees are less likely to “tough it out” for a job and are putting their emotional well-being first.
The importance of mental health in the workplace cannot be overstated. That's why it's so important for you, as a manager, to actively support your own mental health and work-life balance and do the same for your team. By taking proactive steps, you can help your team perform better and create a more positive and fulfilling workplace.
In this blog, we share 5 mental health tips at work. From checking in with yourself to supporting your reports, there's a lot you can do to make a difference.
If you're an HR leader reading this, share this article with your people managers who can benefit from these tips.
5 Mental Health Tips at Work
1. Optimize Your Energy Levels
Our energy levels impact our emotional state and ability to manage stress. When we feel physically and mentally depleted, coping with challenges and staying resilient becomes harder. When we feel energized and focused, we can better handle stressors and maintain an optimistic mindset.
There are three layers to our energy:
- Physical layer: How much sleep you're getting, how much exercise you're doing, and what you're eating and drinking.
- Emotional layer: How emotionally stable you feel - whether you're feeling positive, anxious, angry etc.
- Mental layer: Mental health and physical health go hand in hand. Your mental energy is only achievable if you have the physical and emotional energy. It's having the stamina to be observant, perceptive, and focused.
And here are a few tips to improve each of your energy layer.
- Physical: How would you rate your physical health from the scale or 1 to 10? Do you exercise or eat healthy foods as much as you like to? What do you need to do to optimize your sleep?
- Emotional: Do you find it hard to keep emotionally balanced? If so, what helps you feel more balanced? Is it meditation? Gratitude journaling? Deep breathing? Or listening to your favorite songs? Choose one that works for you.
- Mental: Identify what's distracting you the most right now. Consider examining your environment. Are you distracted by social media? Noises around you? Messy desk? Write down one distraction you want to eliminate this week.
Tip: It's important to note down how you will remember to do these mental health activities. Setting an alarm? Blocking a time on the calendar? Writing it on a sticky note? Use one method that works for you and be consistent.
2. Block Your Time
Time blocking is an excellent skill that can help with mental health at work. By scheduling specific times for each task on your to-do list, you can minimize distractions, stay focused, and accomplish more in less time. Plus, when you complete your tasks efficiently, you'll have more time for self-care activities like exercise, spending time with loved ones, or pursuing hobbies.
Unfortunately, most blocks end up getting scheduled over or worse, a guilt-inducing reminder of what 'should' be happening.
So, here are some of my tricks to make time-blocking work:
- Plan the time blocks. Don't go blindly blocking. Ask yourself questions like what high impact elements of my job need some scheduled time? What personal time needs to be scheduled? How long do I realistically need for each of my time blocks?
- Make them stick. Identify your competing commitments and see if you can debunk them for yourself. Even raising your awareness of your competing commitments may be enough to overcome procrastination and stick to the plan!
Info: Competing commitments are deeply ingrained beliefs that conflict with our goals. Examples: "If I don't help I'm a bad person," or "It must be perfect or I can't ship it."
- Reinforce the blocks. If people keep scheduling over the blocks of time on your calendar, have a conversation with them. Tell your team about why you're putting work blocks in and set the expectation that they can't be scheduled over unless there's an emergency.
Tip: If someone schedules over your time blocks, decline the invite and follow up with a note for an alternative time. People will soon understand and respect the boundaries you're creating.
3. Be An Advocate For Wellbeing
Being an advocate for wellbeing means promoting and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of yourself and your team. As a manager, you have the ability to set the tone for how mental health is perceived and prioritized in the workplace.
Here’s how to show your advocacy. You can be an advocate for mental health by:
1. Welcoming conversations that talk about emotional wellbeing and mental health. Ask check-in questions like:
- How are you feeling this week?
- Have you made sure you have more breaks on your calendar than last week?
- Last time we spoke, you mentioned you were feeling overwhelmed. What do you need from me to support you?
2. Building wellbeing into your team’s day to day. There are so many opportunities we have as managers to advocate for wellbeing when we have touchpoints with the team. Here are a few things you can try:
- Mindful, deep breathing from the diaphragm reduces stress hormones. One technique is the ‘Box Breathing’, which the US Navy Seals use to calm themselves down during high-stress situations. Take 2 mins at the start of a team meeting to try this with your reports.
- Start each meeting with a 1 minute meditation. Meditation can help teams increase ability to listen, be open to ideas, and be more thoughtful about problem solving.
- At the end of each team meeting, do a round robin of sharing one thing you’re grateful for this week.
If these feel a bit far fetched to you, then challenge yourselves! Just have fun with it! Or you can brainstorm with your team to create some team rituals that really help with emotional wellbeing.
Not sure how to keep your managers accountable to advocate and role-model your company values? Check out these ‘How to Drive Accountability’ tips to keep your people managers accountable without micromanaging them.
Read ‘How to Drive Accountability’
4. Top Up Other People's Emotional Bank Accounts
I borrowed this concept of an emotional bank account from Stephen Covey. Our relationships with people are like emotional bank accounts. To have a healthy relationship, we need to be regularly making “deposits” into their accounts. As managers, it’s important to think of ways to make these deposits so that people feel happy and connected at work. This is also how we build trust with individuals.
“If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your trust toward me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to. When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.” - Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Here are some ideas you can implement to make deposits into your reports' or coworkers' emotional bank accounts:
- Praising someone for good work
- Saying something kind and sincere
- Being empathetic and a good listener when someone is upset
- Showing curiosity and interest in another person’s interests
- Following through on what you've promised
- Showcasing their work to senior leadership
- Doing something to support their career development
What's one thing you can do this week to make a deposit in a co-workers emotional bank account?
5. Create an Inclusive Environment
Last one and most important tip. I’m not going to do this topic justice in this short section but it’s a really critical part of supporting your team’s mental health and wellbeing.
When employees face discrimination at work, there’s not only the one-off emotional cost of a specific incident or set of dynamics. It can also lead to:
- Clinical depression
- Disengagement
- Lower productivity
- Feelings of isolation
- Dehumanization
- Quitting
- Other negative physical and mental health outcomes
Clearly, there’s a link between experiencing discrimination and depression. But how do you create an inclusive environment where everyone thrives and enjoys coming to work?
Here are a few tips to help you get started:
- Make sure you address ‘bad’ behavior. Bad behavior makes others feel excluded and erodes trust. Here are a few examples:
- When someone was interrupted, say something like ”Hold on a moment, I’d love to hear what Pria has to say. Pria, please finish your thought.”
- When someone blames others, say, “Let me stop you there - I’d love for us to keep this discussion more future focussed and talk about ways we can support each other better going forward.”
- When you hear microaggressions or comments directed at someone else around gender, religion, race, age, or sexual orientation, try saying “I’m curious what you meant by that comment?” or “That comment didn’t sit right with me. Rather than digging into this now, let’s have a conversation later.”
- Help everyone have air time in your team meetings. Often you’ll have dominant voices in the meeting. Here’s a technique that can help the quiet folks contribute more. At the start of a meeting, give out cards or a shared doc to write on. Give everyone 10 minutes to note down all their ideas. You then read out the ideas to the group and everyone votes on the ideas that look most interesting.
- Be vulnerable and acknowledge your own fallibility. As a leader, it’s critically important to be able to model vulnerability. Then, you’ll be able to create psychological safety and give other people permission to take risks, speak up, and share concerns. It’s you saying things like:
- I’m sorry I really messed up.
- I don’t know. Taylor is much better qualified to answer that than I am.
- I think I really need your help.
Free ‘Managing Wellbeing’ Learning Path for Managers
Taking care of your mental health is critical in creating a happy and satisfying work environment. As a manager, it's up to you to support your own mental health and that of your employees.
That's why I'm excited to offer a free learning path on mental health care. The path includes 5-to-10 minute interactive videos that cover topics like:
- How to manage your energy
- Science-based stress-reducing tips
- How to manage your time
- Tips for time blocking
These videos are an excellent resource for managers, and we encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to improve your emotional wellbeing and help your team be the best they can be!
