World Mental Health Day (10th October) gives us an opportunity to collectively raise awareness of mental health as a global priority, a platform for us all to “drive actions that promote and protect everyone’s mental health as a universal human right” (WHO).

Take action and look after after your mental health

Lay the foundations of good self-care.

We should all be aware of the need to feed our body and mind with good sleep, exercise and nutrition - these are the crucial foundations of good health. To further promote good health, we should go further and expand self-care into areas that will help us connect to our values and what we love to do personally, professionally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and psychologically. This is quite simple but fulfilling. Ideas can be taken from this self-care wheel.

Raise internal and external self-awareness to manage your feelings.

Shine a light on your internal awareness of your thought processes, your emotions, and your physical feelings by noticing in what way they link up and how these might impact your behaviour, in healthy and unhealthy ways. Try using a mood diary alongside a thoughts journal - these will help you to identify connections between your emotions and thoughts.

Raise your external self-awareness of how you interact and may seem to others so that you can be considerate of their needs and empathic to their concerns. This improves relationships and helps you communicate your own problems to others when you need support.

Focus on flexible thinking.

A key difference between mental health and physical health is the presence of an unsettled mind where thinking is less clear, less optimistic, and more negative when we inevitably turn judgement upon ourselves, others, and the world. This increases the emotional pain we feel and creates barriers to moving towards the sort of life that we want.

Don’t believe everything that you think- stand back, check out and challenge your thinking. Talk to someone to express yourself and reveal to yourself what is really going on inside your mind. Talk kindly to yourself to reduce harsh judgement and silence the inner critic that often compounds poor mental health.

Act in line with your values.

Connect to your values and commit to taking meaningful action. These might be personal values such as keeping fit, being in nature or with animals, environmental or justice causes or becoming part of a community with shared values.

Use this list to help find your values, picking and grading if they are Not Important/Quite Important/Very Important to you. Next, use the bull's eye exercise to find out how closely you are currently living these areas of your life in relation to your now identified values.

Connect to others often and be kind.

Talk to others, share feelings and experiences and ask about theirs. Check in on whether you feel alone or lonely, and check out how your colleagues, friends, and family feel too. Always come from a place of kindness and curiosity.

For more, The Mental Health Foundation offers its best mental health tips backed by research in this downloadable booklet.

Workplaces activities for World Mental Health Day

During our adult lives a large proportion of our time is spent at work. Our experience in the workplace is one of the factors determining our overall wellbeing. Employers and managers who put in place workplace initiatives to promote mental health and to support employees who have mental disorders see gains not only in the health of their employees, but also in their productivity. A negative, toxic work culture, on the other hand, can often exacerbate physical and mental health problems and harmful use of substances or alcohol, and fuel higher absence and staff turnover rates.

So here are a few simple ways you can use World Mental Health Day as an opportunity to improve your work culture and support better mental health as a right for all employees:

Talk about mental health at work
Practise gratitude for positive mental health
Hold a mental health fundraiser at work
Ensure management have an open-door policy around mental health
Consider workplace mental health training and support
Wear the green ribbon - it is the international symbol of mental health awareness, showing co-workers, loved ones or simply those you walk past that you care about their mental health

Contact us at info@87percent.me or book a demo with us to find out how we can help to improve mental health across your organisation.