According to the Global Burden of Disease Study published for the period 1990-2015, depressive disorders were the fourth leading cause of disability in 2005 and the third leading cause of disability in 2015. This compares with other noncommunicable diseases that majorly impact the world’s population. The depressive disorders were ranked behind #1 lower back/neck pain and #2 sense organ diseases (i.e. vision and hearing) for leading disability causes. If you didn’t think living with mental illness was a serious health concern, these statistics say it all.
How Mental Health Impacts Work
As a mental health counselor, I’ve worked with hundreds of patients, primarily women, who have struggled with anxiety and depression. In my office, I’ve heard their heartbreaking stories of how these conditions impact their lives and affect their loved ones. When you aren’t feeling your best in your mind and your emotional state is fragile, it’s hard to focus at work or give your best performance. That’s why it’s important to recognize changes in your daily moods and work habits before you see a significant decrease in your job productivity and engagement. You deserve to seek mental health services before your condition wreaks havoc on your life.
Finding Help Through Your Job
While you might recognize that you’re having trouble sleeping, drinking too much, feeling disconnected from family and friends, dreading going to work, or experiencing other symptoms of anxiety or depression, you might not know where to turn. Fortunately, many of us have help available through our jobs. We’ve all seen it — the blurb on the company website about how employees are the #1 asset and that the organizational leadership is committed to our health and wellness. They supply a variety of programs that help employees receive medical and dental care. There may be a program to cover mental health concerns, such as the employee assistance program or a counseling hotline. When you reflect on the fact that your employer has provided such benefits, it may seem that they want employees to be more productive as happy and healthy individuals. Understandably, employees won’t perform as well when feeling stressed. What may be overlooked is the idea that employees have benefits and don’t know about them or recognize when to use them. Not talking to a professional counselor when your loss, grief, anxiety, or depression is overwhelming could decrease your performance at work and affect your health.
Monitor Your Mental Health
People who have recently experienced loss and grief are at risk for developing other mental health issues, especially if they cannot bounce back easily from depression. There could be feelings of anxiety and uneasiness or feeling paralyzed by your own fears. It may seem like a small thing, but 72 percent of survey respondents shared with the Anxiety and Depression Association of America that stress impedes their daily life. If you aren’t monitoring your mental health, including sensations of loss, grief, anxiety, and depression, you could allow long-term damage to occur to your body. If your mind is not well, then your body will suffer the effects of ongoing stress.
Consider How Important Work is to Your Lifestyle
Although you may not see a direct connection between stress and anxiety and your job, I urge you to think again. A mental health imbalance can creep up on you slowly or it can hit you like a freight train. In the same survey, 56 percent of respondents reported that anxiety affects their performance in the workplace. It makes sense. Stress can trigger your body to go into the fight-or-flight mode. This means that your heart starts pounding, your lungs start breathing faster, and more blood rushes to your brain. You are prepared in the instant for a perceived dangerous situation. If you’re able to calm down, then you can exit that fight-or-flight mode. People with high-stress levels are frequently going into that physical state and their body is getting damaged by their heightened level of activity. If you find it difficult to motivate yourself to go to work in the morning or if you spend much of the night worrying about what could happen at work tomorrow, you could be working in the wrong job or you could be blaming work when the problem is really something else. Talking with a mental health counselor helps you to put all your current stressors into perspective and then start solving one problem at a time.
Effects of High Stress or Anxiety
When your mental state or emotions feel out of balance, you can’t afford to wait to sort out these issues. There are multiple effects of high stress at home and at work. Here are a few to consider:
- The changes in your body due to stress aren’t good for your health. For example, it’s not good for your body to get overexposed to stress hormones.
- High stress can damage your heart and other organs because your blood pressure is elevated and not controlled by medication or relieved by an activity like exercise.
- Anxiety resulting from stress or phobias can produce blood clots, which can cause a heart attack or a stroke in healthy people.
- Stress can influence you to engage in harmful habits, such as overeating, smoking, alcohol use, drug use, and other risky behaviors.
Talking to a professional counselor will help you learn how to limit the effects of anxiety on your daily life and you’ll focus on how to feel happy and whole again. For an appointment, please contact me today.
