Mental Health: Work, Ethics and Mentorship
In today's world, quite a number of the working population is seriously burdened by mental health issues. I'm not going to quote percentages (really, I won't) but you all know that someone who has almost lost their mind because of work.
Work is a necessary for the population to earn money to contribute to the country's economy and to better health for themselves and their families. It has been proven that people who actually have paying jobs have better health than those who have none.
What happens though, when work starts to affect your health?
What happens when your job affects your physically, emotionally, socially, mentally and spiritually? What do you do? Is there a set way to handle these issues? Or do we ignore them and tell people to 'hang in there' because the pay is more important than their state of health?
In the past, a lot of people couldn't switch between careers because it was assumed that training for medicine meant you'd be a doctor for the rest of your life. Public Health's diversity was probably one of those few careers that allowed people to switch from M&E to Disaster Management, or to Disease Surveillance, or to mainstream research, or to Health Promotion and Education.
As a result, the whole 'quit your job to pursue your dream' was highly exalted for people's peace of mind. Even then, not everyone did that. I distinctly remember hearing a career coach in high school telling us that it wasn't about what you wanted, but about what you could do if you missed your first choice. That was the advice that led me to choose public health when I missed dentistry.
Years later, I am actually glad I listened to him. The surprising rot in our ministry makes me wish that the whole lot of my classmates that were lied to about work stability and availability when they chose EVH actually studied something else. In Kenya, Public Health is a way of humiliating the young degree holders. Most people I know are not working in public health. They have jobs that pay the bills. That is the saddest state of affairs I have seen in our field.
Where was I?
Work can affect your mental health. Those deadlines, extra duties, sacrifices, confrontations and embarrassing moments the direct supervisor can impose on you can actually lead to a mental health breakdown.
Yes, I said it.
A lot of people will agree with me about this. There are days you get overwhelmed by the pressure and actually want to take a day off. Other days, you might be down with the flu, but you can't delegate your duties to someone else, so you have to show up at work. This completely violates the rights of a sick person.
Yes, a sick person has rights: the right to see a doctor when they are unwell, to take a few days off to heal, and to get as much assistance as they can from their supervisor and workmates. If a sick person goes to work (like how a lot of doctors worldwide do) then that is a violation of their rights.
There's also the issue of how this affects them mentally. A sick person can't give their all at work. It is highly possible that a sick person will get scolded for doing things slowly or handing in incomplete work. This only serves to lower their self confidence. It is no wonder that a lot of doctors are contemplating suicide these days.
Away from doctors and suicide rates, there's the obvious: mentorship.
A supervisor has a special relationship with the person or people under them. They are entrusted by the organization to build these people up, help improve their skills, and ensure that they give their best at work. A good mentor will make the people they supervise feel like they have a chance to grow and be better, and that they can be the best version of themselves under their leadership, right?
So what happens when your mentor is the one who is bashing you in? What happens if your supervisor is the one witch hunting you? If they see you heading to trouble and all they do is threaten you and tell you how they will fire you?
Being new at a job and having a mentor like this one screams torture. You'll spend 70% of your time looking over your shoulder instead of growing your skills and abilities. Instead of consulting your mentor for clarification, you start looking around you at colleagues on your station or below you for this. Sometimes you might get genuinely good help, but other times, these people will only be working for your downfall.
What happens when you can't trust your boss? No amount of smiling from them will ease your fears. Most times you will be too worried working to instantly gratify them instead of choosing to come up with long term solutions to sort out issues you have to deal with.
Being a mentor is a tough balance. That is the truth. However, if your presence in your mentee's life makes them more afraid of you than they are of a man-eating lion, then you should start to reevaluate your methods. Is your communication good? Are you a leader or a manager? Are you helping to grow them? Or is your presence a huge barrier to their performance and psychological health?
I'm not saying this is easy. In fact, some people won't even know that they are that hostile. Others do, but choose to ignore it.
Work environment is very important. It is the second place we spend quite a number of your day's hours in. It is only fair if those 40+ hours are spent in a place that makes us strive to be the best versions of ourselves. A place where we can grow our abilities. A place where we can take a step forward and reach out our hands to help someone climb the steps too.
A week in your human life spans 168 hours. We spend about a fourth or more of those hours at work. That is why occupational health is a key thing in institutions we work at. Our workplaces are just as important as our homes. We need to be healthy there too.
Not every office has a counselor or psychologist to help the staff sort through their issues. There's also the notion of mental health still being a taboo topic in a lot of places. While people might talk about it at home, they won't talk about it voluntarily at work. Society tends to treat people who have mental issues as insane, forgetting that mental health is actually a very wide discipline.
Considering all human beings have brains, this branch of health should be given more respect. Mental health is not about insanity. That is not the only illness people have. I have said this numerous times, and i'll keep saying it: that there is need to make more safe spaces for mental health discussions. We should not hold ourselves back. After all, our brains are part of our bodies. They can get sick or I'll, just like our other body parts. Why should this be strange?
Work is one of the reasons someone's mental health might not be at optimum levels. This should not be embarrassing. We should not sweep this under the rag.
Safe work places stimulate better results from work for the employees. Ideal work places should have good policies preventing sexual harassment, promoting better health insurance, and should aim at instilling the staff with better skills while meeting the objectives the organization has set out to address by establishing itself there.
Making work places more friendly towards mental health is one of the ways I believe the suicide rates, the alcoholic behaviours, the narcotics' dependency on stress relief will all go down. No one wants to go to work and feel trapped and out of their wits. It is not a great feeling.
Stress from work can result in more than mental health issues. It is very common for these issues to trickle down to the person's physical, social and spiritual wellbeing. This may very well make people miss out on work, resulting in a reduction of revenue generation and reduction in life expectancy of the citizens.
I feel like I have lost my train of thought. I think I have written a lot of things and 'Anpanman' has me very confused. I think I can't multi-task as well anymore, so i'm gonna stop here.
Good morning!!! It is twenty four minutes past midnight (GMT+3 Hours) and I need to sleep. I will see you on my next post, inshaallah.
Sincerely,
Me.
Work is a necessary for the population to earn money to contribute to the country's economy and to better health for themselves and their families. It has been proven that people who actually have paying jobs have better health than those who have none.
What happens though, when work starts to affect your health?
What happens when your job affects your physically, emotionally, socially, mentally and spiritually? What do you do? Is there a set way to handle these issues? Or do we ignore them and tell people to 'hang in there' because the pay is more important than their state of health?
In the past, a lot of people couldn't switch between careers because it was assumed that training for medicine meant you'd be a doctor for the rest of your life. Public Health's diversity was probably one of those few careers that allowed people to switch from M&E to Disaster Management, or to Disease Surveillance, or to mainstream research, or to Health Promotion and Education.
As a result, the whole 'quit your job to pursue your dream' was highly exalted for people's peace of mind. Even then, not everyone did that. I distinctly remember hearing a career coach in high school telling us that it wasn't about what you wanted, but about what you could do if you missed your first choice. That was the advice that led me to choose public health when I missed dentistry.
Years later, I am actually glad I listened to him. The surprising rot in our ministry makes me wish that the whole lot of my classmates that were lied to about work stability and availability when they chose EVH actually studied something else. In Kenya, Public Health is a way of humiliating the young degree holders. Most people I know are not working in public health. They have jobs that pay the bills. That is the saddest state of affairs I have seen in our field.
Where was I?
Work can affect your mental health. Those deadlines, extra duties, sacrifices, confrontations and embarrassing moments the direct supervisor can impose on you can actually lead to a mental health breakdown.
Yes, I said it.
A lot of people will agree with me about this. There are days you get overwhelmed by the pressure and actually want to take a day off. Other days, you might be down with the flu, but you can't delegate your duties to someone else, so you have to show up at work. This completely violates the rights of a sick person.
Yes, a sick person has rights: the right to see a doctor when they are unwell, to take a few days off to heal, and to get as much assistance as they can from their supervisor and workmates. If a sick person goes to work (like how a lot of doctors worldwide do) then that is a violation of their rights.
There's also the issue of how this affects them mentally. A sick person can't give their all at work. It is highly possible that a sick person will get scolded for doing things slowly or handing in incomplete work. This only serves to lower their self confidence. It is no wonder that a lot of doctors are contemplating suicide these days.
Away from doctors and suicide rates, there's the obvious: mentorship.
A supervisor has a special relationship with the person or people under them. They are entrusted by the organization to build these people up, help improve their skills, and ensure that they give their best at work. A good mentor will make the people they supervise feel like they have a chance to grow and be better, and that they can be the best version of themselves under their leadership, right?
So what happens when your mentor is the one who is bashing you in? What happens if your supervisor is the one witch hunting you? If they see you heading to trouble and all they do is threaten you and tell you how they will fire you?
Being new at a job and having a mentor like this one screams torture. You'll spend 70% of your time looking over your shoulder instead of growing your skills and abilities. Instead of consulting your mentor for clarification, you start looking around you at colleagues on your station or below you for this. Sometimes you might get genuinely good help, but other times, these people will only be working for your downfall.
What happens when you can't trust your boss? No amount of smiling from them will ease your fears. Most times you will be too worried working to instantly gratify them instead of choosing to come up with long term solutions to sort out issues you have to deal with.
Being a mentor is a tough balance. That is the truth. However, if your presence in your mentee's life makes them more afraid of you than they are of a man-eating lion, then you should start to reevaluate your methods. Is your communication good? Are you a leader or a manager? Are you helping to grow them? Or is your presence a huge barrier to their performance and psychological health?
I'm not saying this is easy. In fact, some people won't even know that they are that hostile. Others do, but choose to ignore it.
Work environment is very important. It is the second place we spend quite a number of your day's hours in. It is only fair if those 40+ hours are spent in a place that makes us strive to be the best versions of ourselves. A place where we can grow our abilities. A place where we can take a step forward and reach out our hands to help someone climb the steps too.
A week in your human life spans 168 hours. We spend about a fourth or more of those hours at work. That is why occupational health is a key thing in institutions we work at. Our workplaces are just as important as our homes. We need to be healthy there too.
Not every office has a counselor or psychologist to help the staff sort through their issues. There's also the notion of mental health still being a taboo topic in a lot of places. While people might talk about it at home, they won't talk about it voluntarily at work. Society tends to treat people who have mental issues as insane, forgetting that mental health is actually a very wide discipline.
Considering all human beings have brains, this branch of health should be given more respect. Mental health is not about insanity. That is not the only illness people have. I have said this numerous times, and i'll keep saying it: that there is need to make more safe spaces for mental health discussions. We should not hold ourselves back. After all, our brains are part of our bodies. They can get sick or I'll, just like our other body parts. Why should this be strange?
Work is one of the reasons someone's mental health might not be at optimum levels. This should not be embarrassing. We should not sweep this under the rag.
Safe work places stimulate better results from work for the employees. Ideal work places should have good policies preventing sexual harassment, promoting better health insurance, and should aim at instilling the staff with better skills while meeting the objectives the organization has set out to address by establishing itself there.
Making work places more friendly towards mental health is one of the ways I believe the suicide rates, the alcoholic behaviours, the narcotics' dependency on stress relief will all go down. No one wants to go to work and feel trapped and out of their wits. It is not a great feeling.
Stress from work can result in more than mental health issues. It is very common for these issues to trickle down to the person's physical, social and spiritual wellbeing. This may very well make people miss out on work, resulting in a reduction of revenue generation and reduction in life expectancy of the citizens.
I feel like I have lost my train of thought. I think I have written a lot of things and 'Anpanman' has me very confused. I think I can't multi-task as well anymore, so i'm gonna stop here.
Good morning!!! It is twenty four minutes past midnight (GMT+3 Hours) and I need to sleep. I will see you on my next post, inshaallah.
Sincerely,
Me.
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