Mental Health at Work
People spend the majority of their week at work it takes up a lot of your energy, concentration, motivation, and time. Given the influence that work has on our lives, it’s no wonder that your professional life can have a significant effect on your mental health – both positive and negative. Given that at least one in four people will suffer mental health in their lifetime, it’s maybe more common in your workplace than you think.
Although workplaces can cause increases in stress and other mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, it’s important to note that employment can also have a positive impact on our well-being.
Work gives us a valuable purpose in life, motivating us to get up in the morning and create or achieve something. As social animals, humans also require daily interaction with the outside world. Work generally allows us to engage socially every day, something which is especially important to people who live alone or are otherwise isolated or lonely. The financial benefits of working life also have positive effects on our well-being. Money isn’t everything but having a regular income can reduce financial stress and allow us to engage in activities we enjoy and buy things that we want, depending on how much we earn.
Problems in the workplace can be your workload, your interaction with colleagues, hours, routine, a feeling of being unappreciated or unfairly treated, or something unrelated to work that you somehow associate with the workplace.