Looking After Your Mental Health and Wellbeing
As it is Mental Health Awareness Week, we are all reviewing our mental health and wellbeing practices. Tony O’Brien, Change Manager and Jess Franklin, D&I Advisor at Clyde and Co have given their tips for LGBTQIA+ people in the workplace on how to look after their mental health and have a focus on wellbeing.
Tony (left) and Jess (right)
1. Write it down in a journal
Grab pen and paper, or type an email to yourself to your own personal inbox that downloads and explains what is happening, how you are feeling etc. Take time away from it, then go back and reread maybe edit it, what have you learnt from it? How does it feel now that you have let it out onto paper or screen? If you have someone who knows you very well and you trust, ask them to read and give you their support and view-sharing the situation. Keep revisiting and thinking about how you could act positively to either accept something, adapt to it, alter it, or even avoid it for now if that feels best.
2. Make sure you have a community in the workplace.
Whether this is an LGBTQIA+ network or a mentor, make sure you have a support system at work. For LGBTQIA+ individuals mental health issues are at higher risk than their straight/cis counterparts therefore having a community and unity with other individuals within the community is important.
3. Take a lunch or break time walk!
Move around, try and find some green space or people-watching space, be conscious of what is around you on your walk, what can you see, what can you hear, what can you smell, notice the temperature, the wind, the sun- stop and forensically analyse what is around you – this is creating moments of distractions from negatively impacting situations and help to improve our mental wellbeing.
4. Review your working day every day.
Ask reflective learning questions to develop a positive ability to enhance and galvanise good personal wellbeing such as: What did I enjoy the most today and what was it about the situation that made me feel good? What did I achieve (no matter how small) that made me feel good and what was it about me that made it go so well? Who did I compliment today and why? How do I think I made them feel and what did that do for my sense of self?
