Within my roles as a Mental Health in the Workplace Advisor, a Mental Health Instructor and a huge boxing fan, I cannot fail to identify the similarities between a 12-round bout and a 12-hour working day, where each of the three-minute rounds line up to a certain degree of parallel against each of the 12 core hours in the standard working day; from waking up to the alarm to escaping from the workplace after a difficult day.
We can look and see how various mental health challenges can be encountered by an alarmingly high percentage of the UK workforce, where maybe as many as one worker in four can be affected every year.
Obviously not all mental health challenges are work-related; they can be through family problems, such as illness, bereavement, health issues, financial matters, relationship breakdowns, divorce etc, but the harsh reality is the fact that they are transported into the workplace.
How many of you recognise that the experience of the alarm going off is the start of proverbial Round 1, where instantly you have to be alert and performing mentally to be able to grasp what is going to be thrown at you in the following twelve rounds?
No matter whether you are suffering from episodes of, or continual anxiety or depression, there is a routine that is sometimes very hard to follow, even though you might just want to stay in the corner or in a ringside seat as an observer.
But no, the alarm goes off and it is “Seconds out, round one”; you need to ‘enter the ring’ and start getting the next couple of ‘rounds’ underway with a structured routine, and one where you sometimes need to be able to pick yourself up of the floor or bring yourself down from the ceiling from that first bell.
The anxieties and lows of another working day are already preparing the body for another ‘fight or flight’ scenario, where often flight isn’t the option, so the fight is now very much on, and finding your footing is the order of the day.
With the feeling or mixed feelings of anxiety, fear and worry bringing on migraine, nausea, panic attacks and a gnawing away in the pit of the stomach, yet another working day is under way as you start another commute to the workplace, with the unforeseen delays caused by traffic and engineering works adding to the daily dilemmas and heightening the symptoms. Should it have been a day of flight and absenteeism?
Maybe, but since when has that made the problems at work any smaller? So, it is another day of presenteeism, where you are present, but not performing to your true potential.
With the first two rounds (hours) out of the way, Round 3 is inevitably in the workplace, where the daily challenges of demands, performance and pressure seem to be thrown in, like a flurry of unrelenting punches jabbing away, often being delivered from the blind side as you are floundering on the ropes.
This is going to be another tough bout, and likely to go the full distance, but not without a fair share of ‘trading punches’ when needed in order to settle down and perform in the work-related arena.
Being at loggerheads with work colleagues while facing the constant stress of the anxieties of demanding targets and deadlines while trading toe-to-toe punches with the inevitable clash of heads in whatever employment is difficult enough, without the unexpected punch below the belt, which sends you reeling back in to a corner. What isn’t required when facing mental health challenges in the workplace, is that proverbial ‘low blow’.
Who is there to support you? Who is fighting your corner for you? Any cornermen or seconds who are in the guises of Supervisor or Line Manager? Are you left in a state of hyperventilation, sweating and shaking in a panic attack? Are you spiralling downwards into the bottomless void of depression, where everything is just too much to comprehend, with little motivation to fight back? Is there a safe place for a moment to recover? Is there a respective mandatory eight-count or the luxury of a ’neutral corner’ in another office?
What about having the towel thrown in and admitting defeat? Is there any one to actually throw the towel in for you? Is there anyone in your corner to prepare you for the next round, or onslaught?
These core working hours from mid-morning to mid-afternoon are the hard-fought middle rounds, where there is no early result in sight; this one needs to and will go the distance unless something unprecedented happens.
Today is a tough day, and auditory hallucinations and flashbacks can come flooding in as a temporary psychotic episode takes hold when a similar trauma springs to mind. Where is the Mental Health Champion today? Does the company actually have a Mental Health Champion, who can be called in like the ring doctor for a brief assessment?
With only a few hours left, and the immediate crisis seemingly being over, the panic eventually subsides, bringing on feelings of exhaustion, low self-worth, and the assumed negative thoughts of Impostor Syndrome accompanied with low esteem and self-doubt.
Thoughts of punching below your weight are now running rife along with the thoughts of “Why do I bother?” The answer being that you are qualified for the job, and proved that via the interviewing process, but what is more likely, is that your employer lacks Mental Health Awareness, and needs to be making ‘reasonable adjustments’ and adopting a mental health policy and embedding measures and procedures.
As the final minutes tick by, the end of the battle is in sight; despite still having to fight hard, trading punches blow by blow to the final bell, where as per usual, there is no outright winner; just another draw with mental battle scars to be addressed and soothed before tomorrow’s bout.
The working day is over, you are back indoors in your safe place some 12 hours after the first bell; time for recovery now, and a slight feeling of euphoria for having survived another battle, which regrettably becomes short-lived with punch drunk thoughts of tomorrow already taking their toll.
And in another extreme, maybe there is an element of emotional self-harm prevalent; where you are constantly over-thinking about work or personal affairs, and experiencing the constant state of anxiety and depression, where feelings can range between the self-deprecating emotions of guilt or low self-worth, which can bring about varying degrees of psychological damage.
Should these mental health challenges propagate from occurrences outside the workplace, then professional help is recommended, where the correct diagnosis can be determined and relevant medication and therapies can be administered.
But when these feelings and occurrences arise from the workplace and the daily challenges in an emotionally unstable environment, the suggestion of continued self-inflicted emotional and mental pain may be classified as psychological self-harm in a totally sub-conscious ’beating yourself up’ manner, where you are over-consumed with negative thoughts, which is an entirely new challenge and needs to be addressed before it becomes damaging, and attracts abuse, bullying and discrimination.
This is the point where moving on and ‘dropping a weight or division’ may be necessary in order to compete at your respective level with the right team in your corner.
In ending, we are sure you aware that Mental Health in the Workplace can be costly in terms of loss of production, missing deadlines, poor performance, mistakes, absenteeism, presenteeism and increased overtime and/or temporary staff hire?
So how do you get advice on Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace?
To introduce ourselves, we are Aquarius Mental Health Solutions, who are North Kent and Mid-Sussex-based independent advisors in Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace, with qualified instructors who can instruct half-day, one-day and two-day FAA certificated First Aid in Mental Health Awareness courses in the Workplace to create your own Mental Health Champion/Supervisor.
Were you aware that Mental Illness is a protected characteristic in legislation (Equality Act 2010), and is very often discriminated against, which can cost a company money when taken to court for discrimination against disability in an employment tribunal through ACAS?
Employers have further legal requirements to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace under the Equality Act 2010 in order to facilitate employees with mental illness.
Going forward we would be interested to communicate directly with the person(s) responsible for Mental Health Awareness & Regulations your company.