Mental wellbeing

There are four key areas where mental ill health may start to be recognised in colleagues. They don’t all need to be present but they represent signs that something’s going wrong and a conversation could help.

Cognitive

Colleagues may show signs of forgetfulness, struggling to concentrate or focus on tasks. They might be making mistakes, struggling to make decisions or becoming erratic in their approach to work.

Behavioural

Colleagues might be coming into work tired, increasing caffeine or being late for work because they have slept in, all of which indicate changes in sleeping patterns. They may start smoking more or there are signs they are drinking more alcohol. Rapid weight loss or weight gain may indicate change in eating habits.

Emotional

Colleagues might become more irritated or aggressive or more withdrawn and passive. Their reactions to stress or change may seem disproportionate in nature for example they become tearful or cry, appear nervous, agitated or irritable and may be highly sensitive to any perceived criticism.

Social

Colleagues might change how they engage with other people, withdrawing into themselves, turning down social events, not engaging in office conversation or avoiding contact with others. They may push their distress outwards onto other people and become difficult to work with, aggressive, dismissive even rude.

It’s important to remember that you are not expected to be a counsellor or an expert in mental health, as colleagues, we are there to listen if we are approached by a colleague who is struggling.

If we think someone is struggling it can be hard to start a conversation, you may be worried about causing offence or saying the wrong thing. However, there is no harm in asking, in a friendly, non-judgemental way ‘Are you okay?’ This is far better than silence.

We can all take steps to become more familiar with mental health conditions, how they can affect us and the support available. By doing so we can help others when they are struggling. Please see our the Helpful definitions below.

By understanding some key definitions and statements we have a common starting point on which to build a healthy dialogue. The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) and Mind have produced helpful definitions.

Each of the definitions and many more, are available on the MIND website which is linked at the bottom of this page.

Mental health: We all have mental health, just as we all have physical health. How we feel can vary from good mental wellbeing to difficult feelings and emotions, to severe mental health problems.

Mental well-being: Mental wellbeing is the ability to cope with the day-to-day stresses of life, work productively, interact positively with others and realise our own potential. When we talk about well-being we are referring to mental well-being.

Poor mental health: Poor mental health is when we are struggling with low mood, stressor anxiety. This might mean we’re also coping with feeling restless, confused, shorttempered, upset or preoccupied. We all go through periods of experiencing poor mentalhealth – mental health is a spectrum of moods and experiences and we all have times when we feel better or worse.

Mental health problems: We all have times when we struggle with our mental health. A mental health problem is when difficult experiences or feelings go on for a long time and affect our ability to enjoy and live our lives in the way we want. You might receive a specific diagnosis from your doctor, or just feel more generally that you are experiencing a prolonged period of poor mental health.

Common mental health problems: These include depression, anxiety, phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). These make up the majority of the problems that lead to one in four people experiencing a mental health problem in any given year. Symptoms can range from the comparatively mild to very severe.

Severe mental health problems: These include less common conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. They can have very varied symptoms and affect your everyday life to different degrees. They are generally regarded as severe mental health problems because they often require more complex and/or long-term treatments.

Work-related stress: Work-related stress is defined by the Health and Safety Executive as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on them at work. Stress, including work-related stress, can be a significant cause of illness. It is known to be linked with high levels of sickness absence, staff turnover and other issues such as increased capacity for error. Stress is not a medical diagnosis, but severe stress that continues for a long time may lead to a diagnosis of depression or anxiety, or more severe mental health problems.

Mental wellbeing is our priority with sponsorship from Executive Team, Senior management led steering group plus promoting everyone to get involved with our wellbeing champions.