Mental Health at Work Place

Some few months a go, I entered an essay writing competition, organized by the Department of Psychiatry. They were celebrating the Mental Health week & so I thought I should enter the competition & see where I stand. I did not win & the people who won, must have been better. But I thought of posting my thoughts on the same topic.

I am presenting below, my essay, which I submitted for the competition.

Mental Health at Workplace

Everyone aims to remain healthy, but most of us focus on preventing or treating physical ailments. Mental health & the need to maintain a constant peaceful state of mind is seldom actually understood by almost everyone.

Once upon a time, there existed clear distinctions in the type of work. The feminine group were confined to the WORK related to HOUSEHOLD and the MASCULINE CONTERPARTS were expected to work TO EARN MONEY. For me, working at home or professionally is equally important as both sexes are working to achieve a certain goal. So to achieve and maintain a normal health – mentally, both the scenarios have to considered as both have to maintain their dignity, interpersonal relationships, face work pressures and finish their work on time.

In today’s times – the scene has changed dramatically. Women have become financially independent. Men help their mothers or wives in household chores. This has lead to increase work burden and pressure. With changing trends and increasing competition people find less time to think and understand as they are mostly engaged in finishing their daily deadlines both professionally as well as at home.

I would like to emphasize that we as responsible individuals should try to maintain a normal situation. So in any set up i.e. at home or professionally the

seniors should keep in mind that:

• “Saas bhi kabhi Bahu thi”. Experience & maturity is usually expected to build a proper understanding.
• equal & rational distribution of work should be done. 
• it is perfectly normal when a work or two remains pending only to be finished in the near future. 
• expectations should be logical and not as per the individual’s thinking. 
• rules should be followed only to be adjusted when required. Strict adherence to rules increases anxiety and decreases work efficiency. Flexibility helps. Seniors should also understand that rules are applied to every individual including themselves. 
• an equal opportunity should be given to every individual to express their thoughts & present ideas.
• reasonable distance should be maintained between the colleagues & juniors to avoid any future conflicts.

juniors to keep in mind that:

• seniors too are humans. It’s a human nature to behave in a certain way. You may not necessarily like it.
• if it actually hurts, please express. It would only increase the personal tension in case one chooses to remain silent. It is easy to remain expressive than to keep thinking.
• if a junior gets the opportunity to express, its normal to get rejected. You cannot expect to be taken and agreed on, the moment your idea or thoughts are presented. It’s human to disagree.
• an assigned work has to be taken up and done with interest. There’s no point in cribbing when you choose to contribute nothing in any given scenario.
• rejection of the work not meant to be done by you, should be done with utmost sweetness and with respect.

Hence certain basic funda’s if kept in mind will help in better functioning and maintaining near normal mental health.

I would like to recite an incidence which took place with my sister-in-law last year. My cousin and his wife live in USA. The place where they live is extremely cold. And commuting a bit difficult. When she resumed work after becoming a new mom of 2 extremely adorable twins, she started finding it difficult as she had to manage both work and home all by herself with no help from her home members. Nowadays many work sectors give new mothers certain flexibilities so that they can take care of their children and work effectively as well. But how much are such facilities effectively delivered depends a lot on the people implementing it. No programme is successful if the employees of that institute do not take it in the right manner. Colleagues rarely adjusted for my sister-in-law. She would feel bad and depressed and she once expressed that people do not want to understand despite being parents themselves.

Other aspect is recognizing and accepting. People recognize but just do not want to accept. The stigma associated with admitting certain disorders like depression is too much. Also people commonly use certain slangs very loosely like, “this person is depressed”, or “you are mad. Just shut up”. These words might be spoken very casually in a certain situation but do have a considerable impact. Acceptance solves many problems as accepting your own situation indicates an intact insight to resolve the issue.

A certain branded cloth line started by the very famous actor emphasizes on the concept of “Being Human”. Humans are humans. Does a HUMAN BEING have to BE A HUMAN? Humanity is natural and so are the positive and negative factors associated with it. When we all are positive why is the negative not accepted?

I was watching a movie “The Lunchbox” the other day. A fantastic epistolary that is shown to occur between two totally unknown individuals, Ila and Saajan Fernandes. Almost at the end of the movie, Ila mentions in one of her letters to Mr. Saajan about the two of them shifting and staying at Bhutan as the “Gross National Happiness” there is higher. The AAM JUNTA there is much happier and peaceful then most the countries of the world. Probably people there have found happiness in every scenario whether working full time at home, professionally or working full time from home.

Acceptance & acknowledgement is important. Understanding the opposite person or at the most just going with the flow helps. If you cannot do anything, do not increase the problems by making unnecessary issues. In most situations at home or at work place – trying to make things easier helps a lot.

As rightly said by ‘Angela Lee Duckworth’ – “Willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learnt” is right way to go. She says grit & to be gritty is of utmost importance.

I am TRYING TO UNDERSTAND – ARE YOU?