PROTECTING MENTAL HEALTH AT WORK
Today is World Mental Health Day and we wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about mental health in the workplace, specifically taking proactive rather than reactive approaches to protect your and your employees mental health.
In this blog, we discuss the impact of mental health at work, what we can do on an individual level to protect our mental health, mental health strategies for employers, and what Balance + Glo can do to help.
Impact of mental health on businesses
Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses are consistently the most reported reason in England for sickness absence accounting for 24.9% of all sickness absence in September 2022 (NHS, 2023). As well impacting the individuals, there is a cost for the employers both in terms of absence and presenteeism (coming to work but at reduced capacity due to illness and therefore loss of productivity) costs. With poor mental health costing UK employers a staggering £42bn-£45bn each year, it is crucial that we start delivering effective and measurable wellbeing strategies.
How to support your own mental health at work
What you can do as an employee to protect your mental health at work:
Take breaks
Spend time away from your desk and screen (particularly at lunchtime), ideally in green space. Eating lunch at your desk can increase cortisol, a stress hormone and make you less able to focus. So you may think you’ll get more work done staying at your desk, but it’s actually quite the contrary.
Prioritise Sleep
Poor sleep can both be a symptom and a contributor to mental health problems. A survey by the Mental Health Foundation (2020) found that 37% of working adults found their work reduced the amount of control they had over their sleep. Sleep is important for productivity and alertness and therefore a reduction in sleep can further increase work related stress. Improve your sleep by implementing a bedtime routine, try meditating pre bed, or listening to a Yoga Nidra (try our 15 minute Yoga Nidra for Deep Rest on YouTube).
Move your body
Moving your body can have a positive impact on your mental health (can help you sleep better, releases endorphins, and lowers cortisol which helps to manage stress). The link between bodies physical and mental health is bidirectional, physical health can impact mental health and vice versa. At Balance + Glo, we are all about moving to feel good, you can start by carving out just 5 minutes for movement (try our 5 Minute Energiser as part of our ‘Take 5’ workplace wellbeing series on YouTube). Remember that some movement is better than none!
Nourish your body
Nourish your body with delicious whole foods. You don’t need to make big changes to your diet, to reap the benefits. Ensure you eat regularly to prevent your blood sugar dropping (which can lead to poor mood and low energy), stay hydrated (can affect your concentration levels), consume healthy fats (olive oil, nuts, seeds, oily fish, avocado, milk and eggs) and avoid/reduce consumption of trans fats (often found in processed and packaged foods) as these can be bad for your mood, opt for wholegrain, enjoy a variety of fruits and vegetables, and consume some protein with every meal (protein contains amino acids that help regulate mood).
Take 5 Series
Often when we think of taking a break, we focus on the large ones - the lunch breaks, weekends or periods of annual leave. And yes these are important for our mental health, but they are not the only breaks we should be taking.
Research has found that taking ‘micro-breaks’ throughout the day can have a positive impact on your overall wellbeing and productivity. So today, we’re sharing our Take 5 Series for FREE on our youtube channel.
Become a Balance + Glo member today and you can get access to an online library of over 800 yoga, fitness, breath-work and meditation classes ranging from 5 minutes to 90 minutes. Already a member? Discover the Take 5 Series in the On Demand Class Library.
What you can do as an employer
Check our top tips for how to protect the mental health of your employees:
Lead by example
Senior leaders, in particular, have an important role in opening up conversations around mental health, but also in being active participants in activities designed to protect mental health in the workplace (e.g. taking lunch breaks, promoting a good work-life balance, and engaging in wellbeing activities).
Collaborative design
Involve staff in the design of mental health workplace interventions. Listen to the needs of staff and what support they would like to see in the workplace, focus on removing barriers to engagement.
Embed workplace wellbeing into the operational day-to-day
It is important that any wellbeing strategies are not standalone and instead are built into the operational day-to-day running of the business and included in workplace policies.
Provision of accessible wellbeing interventions
Options should be provided for wellbeing activities (from different times of day, location (including both in-person and online), and the provision of recordings so employees can catch-up if unable to attend or repeat. Time should be blocked off for wellbeing activities (staff should not be expected to attend meetings during these hours), and senior leaders should lead by example through their attendance.
Engage with trusted experts
Hold sessions on key wellbeing topics (aligned with the needs of your workforce, .e.g. workplace anxiety, menopause, sleep) and invite expert speakers to attend.
How Balance + Glo can help
We want to drive real change in the corporate wellbeing landscape. It’s time to move away from offering tick box wellbeing provision, and start delivering meaningful and measurable impacts that improve the mental and physical health of your workforce, increase productivity, reduce turnover, and optimise engagement.
Find out how we can help you, in a summary of what we can offer below:
Workplace Challenges
We have developed a series of work based challenges designed to create healthy habits. Unmanaged and regular exposure to stress can have a negative impact on our physical and mental health. Our ‘Stress Less’ Challenge is about developing healthier ways to respond to stress and reducing its impact, in order to improve overall wellbeing.
Workplace Workshops
We offer in-person and online wellbeing workshops. For example our ‘Reducing Workplace Stress’ workshop focused on stress prevention with a functional breath session, education content on how to alleviate stress through food, and an outdoor grounding yoga Nidra.
Online Studio Membership
Give your employees access to over 900 classes (covering yoga, fitness, pilates, meditation, and breath-work), plus a live schedule of weekly classes with our team of experts, weekly nutritious recipes, and exclusive articles to support their wellbeing.
Wellbeing Strategy
Make the most of our wellbeing consultancy services and allow us to develop you a meaningful and evidence-based wellbeing strategy and implementation plan. Guided by best practice and tailored to your workforce, the strategy will include an overall aim, objectives and KPIs (to which performance will be measured against).
Senior leaders and employees will be involved throughout the development (through focus groups and sharing of information) to support buy-in and ensure that activities in the plan are realistic and are built in to the day-to-day operational running of the business.
Want to learn more?
Get in touch to find out more about our corporate wellbeing provision and start making a real difference to the mental health of your employees.
