Balancing Mental Health and a Full-time Job
In this busy world, we often forget to take care of what’s most important – our minds. It’s easy to become consumed by deadlines and professional obligations, but you must prioritize your mental health to achieve peak productivity.
Recognizing Your Needs
Do you ever feel like your life is passing you by? Like every day is just a routine you need to get through until you finally get to go to sleep? Is sleep really what you want to be the highlight of your day? Work is important, yes, and it is something that should be prioritized. However, if you don’t feel good, how can you expect yourself to perform well? The two go hand in hand, so the first step is acknowledgment.
Common signs of work-induced mental health decline include increased stress, persistent fatigue, changes in sleep patterns, and a decline in overall mood. The following tactics will help prevent your work-stress from becoming life-stress.
Strategies for Balancing Mental Health and Work
- Set Boundaries: Define your work hours and limit overtime to create a clear separation between work and personal life. The caveat with this is it can be harder to execute if you work from home. When your personal life and professional life exist in the same environment, there is a different approach to this tactic.
- Building a Workspace: If you work from home, make sure you set those same time boundaries for yourself as you would in a physical office. Set up a designated workspace; it can be nice having the option to work from your bed, but your brain will associate your bed with work. This allows your professional life to occupy your mind while in what should be, your personal sanctuary.
- Time Management: Prioritize your tasks and avoid multitasking. It helps to break your day up into time-blocked segments to maximize your focus and productivity. This will assist in preventing work from spilling over into your personal hours.
- Self-Care: If you’re hard at work for hours on end, it’s important to take breaks to get a quick reset. We all know how strenuous it feels to work on one thing for too long, so take a walk, grab a snack, or just step away from your workspace to take a breath. Sometimes all you need is a quick moment to clear your mind.
- Communicate Your Needs: Mental health used to be a taboo, nuanced topic, but in today’s world it is okay to acknowledge your mental needs. In fact, many companies provide support for mental health. If you were suffering from a physical sickness, you would communicate that with your superior, so the same should be done for mental sickness.
- Seek Support: Many companies offer Employee Assistance Programs that provide resources and support for employees dealing with mental health challenges. Outside of your workplace, you can seek out therapists, talk to the people in your life about their experiences, and pursue many free online resources such as guided meditation, support groups, and mental health podcasts.
It Matters
Balancing mental health and a full-time job is a process that requires honest effort and self-awareness. Building a supportive work environment is a shared responsibility upon employers and employees. It starts with acknowledgement, open communication, and reducing the stigma around mental health. Remember, your well-being matters, and taking care of your mind is an essential part of your overall success and happiness.