As you may know, October is Mental Health awareness month and I thought I would get this on to the blog before the month ends with the annual Halloween celebration.
Because the celebration was limited by Covid last year, I for one am hoping that Halloween will be big. My own children are too big to trick or treat but I always put a pumpkin out as I love to see the children’s faces when they come to the front door with their makeup and fancy dress clothes.
You may be wondering what Mental Health awareness has to do with Halloween.
It is not Halloween per se but the time of year. As we head towards what was called The Dark Halt of the Year, we face the possibility of cold, wet, dreary days. We wake up and it’s dark and we come home from work and it’s dark. This can play havoc with our mental wellbeing. Throw in a large helping of Covid and uncertainties about lockdown or other measures, you have a mental health time bomb on your hands.
To be clear, I don’t believe that mental health awareness is just about a single month of the year; it is something that is ever present.
Your mental health is just as important as your physical health and it needs to be looked after as such.
I always say to my children “that your brain is a wonderful thing but if it is not working properly it can be awful”
As parents we are teaching our children about how to look after their own mental and emotional health through the things we say and the things we do. We are the models that they will base their future behaviours upon.
Learning to look after our own mental health starts with the recognition we all have mental health and as such it is part of a continuum. It continues with the understanding that are some very practical things you can do to maintain it.
As employers, it is important to we pay attention to the mental health of our employees. It can be far too easy as an employer to fail to see this as a work issue and a legal responsibility.
This is especially the case in large work environments were numerous issues can breed and can cause a toxic work environment:
• Bullying
• Favouritism (not what you know who you know attitude to promotion)
• One rule for one and another rule for other people
• Employees picking up the slack for other employees for no extra pay
As an employer it is our responsibility to ensure that our employees are happy in their work and that if any issues arise they feel that they can approach us to talk about them. Such a discussion helps us identify what we can take action on within the work place and what we can do to suggest support outside of it.
A happy workforce is a productive workforce which in turn helps your business to grow.
So take the time to check in with yourself, stay in bed a little longer. Take a long bath and read the book you have been meaning to finish. Sit and watch the T.V all afternoon or take an afternoon nap but most of all don’t feel guilty do what you need to do for your brain to relax and recuperate from what is really a very stressful time now and for a while yet.
Halloween, is known in the ancient Celtic Calendar as Samhain. It is a time which marked the end of the Old Year and the start of the New. It is a time of reconciliation and review; a time to ditch old habits and start some new ones.
Perhaps new habits of caring for your own mental health a well-being could be established. You can then become a positive role model for your family, colleagues and employees.
