Work with your head - mental health awareness campaign launched
03/10/2021In the first half of 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, the number of so-called "L4s," or sick leave, increased by as much as 72%! The reason? Episodes of depressive and recurrent disorders (environmental depression). How many days of absenteeism from work? A staggering 20 million...The environmental name in this case, of course, refers to the global situation caused by a little creature called SARS Cov-2. A campaign has just been launched to raise awareness of the role of mental health in the workplace.
The campaign aims to promote mental health measures in the workplace. The project that includes the aforementioned campaign is called #OurWorkplaceMentalHealth. The project's mission is to educate both employees and employers in the context of mental health prevention in the workplace. Professional burnout caused by excessive responsibilities, overtime, or working under time pressure can lead to many mental problems. Depression, occupational burnout or chronic fatigue are just a few examples.
The sad norm - occupational burnout
As we work more and more, we are also getting more and more stress. The epidemic and the changes caused by it have naturally triggered reactions of increased stress in us. To put the issue in evolutionary psychology - the stress response is something positive and necessary, and this is because it allows us to simply survive. Problems, on the other hand, begin when it doesn't switch off. The consequence of this condition is that, hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, stay high for a long time, and this in turn leads to hypertension, a weakened immune system and a whole myriad of unpleasant ailments, which in definite cases can even be life-threatening.
Remote work and its negative consequences
Remote work is not only obvious conveniences and advantages alone. In addition to the troubles mentioned earlier, there is a whole list of new problems caused by this very mode of work. Studies show that already 26% of employees are beginning to feel its inconvenience. The main reasons are less motivation to work (as much as 46.1%!), as well as trouble focusing on work (43.6%). This is due to a number of factors. The familiar home environment is not for work, but for rest, and this is the pattern in which most of us function, or have functioned. The change that has affected us has caused our brains to try to adapt to the new conditions. Of course, this is explained in telegraphic shorthand, but the principle is clear. Remedies are different and we have already written about some of them in previous posts. The topic will certainly be well covered in the #OurBrain project, to which I hereby invite you! Below is the link to the campaign: