Mental Wellness in the Workplace

What is mental health wellness? Within the workplace, mental health wellness is the practice of personal awareness that helps you stay in control of what you think, what you feel, and how you react to everything going on around you.

Practicing mental health wellness may be reaching out to patch up a relationship with a coworker with whom you had a conflict earlier so the negative exchange doesn’t fester and harm your relationship, and thereby create unnecessary stress. Another example might be saying “no” to avoid feeling overwhelmed and delivering less than your best work. If you are conscious of your thoughts and feelings and practice this self-awareness regularly, you will make decisions more in-line with what you truly want as you interact and respond to the environment. Without practicing mental health wellness, you are more likely to respond to the world on “autopilot,” reacting emotionally rather than in a rational manner conducive to reducing stress and producing a positive impact on mental health.

Mental health awareness is about intrapersonal skills (what’s going on inside you), thinking upstream, counting to ten, taking a deep breath, and weighing the external and internal realities of a decision or a response. With mental health wellness, you make better decisions while you increase the likelihood of being happy, healthy, and more productive, and discovering more meaning in your job.

Keith Stein | 5/17/2018