Discover signs of mental health struggles at work & how to seek support. Find guidance on managing stress and prioritizing well-being.
Nobody’s immune to bad days at work. You’ve had them too, right? Your to-do list and inbox feel like a giant game of whack-a-mole you can barely keep up with. You’re convinced you stuck your foot in your mouth during a team meeting and can’t stop replaying the experience in your head. You missed an important deadline and are beating yourself up over dropping the ball. While they’re disheartening, these types of hiccups and stressors are a normal part of our working lives.
But what happens when the odd bad day starts to snowball into something bigger? Maybe you’ve found that making it through the workday feels like dragging your feet through wet cement as you struggle to focus on your tasks. Or that your stomach’s tied in knots over projects that used to excite you. You feel completely drained, exhausted, and even a little hopeless—and you know that neither a quick holiday nor a simple self-care routine is going to right the ship.
Your mental health is as unique as you are, so indicators can vary. However, the experts agree that there are some common red flags to look for, all of which interfere with a person’s ability to function normally at work. These include:
- Finding less pleasure in work you were once passionate about (or even feeling irritable about tasks you used to get excited about)
- Struggling to get yourself to show up for work, combined with “extreme anxiety and burnout”)
- Falling off your daily routine after an extended period of consistency
- Demonstrating mood changes, significant shifts in your behaviour, and a lack of compassion or enthusiasm when communicating with co-workers
- Having difficulty concentrating or experiencing confused thinking
Those are somewhat early warning signs, but they can snowball to become even more serious and include difficulty sleeping, excessive crying or hopelessness.
With a better handle on some of the logistics, you’ve laid at least a little of the groundwork to connect with your manager. If your mouth is dry and your hands are clammy at the very thought of it, that’s normal. This can be a nerve-racking conversation to have—especially since mental health leaves usually involve personal details about your life.
But even if you haven’t previously broached the subject with your supervisor, now is the time to schedule a private, dedicated conversation. You don’t need to give a detailed breakdown of what you want to discuss, but a brief heads-up is helpful. You can keep it somewhat vague by saying that you’d like to discuss your recent work and ask for their guidance. Mental health leave is a big subject. A lot more time for the meeting than you think you’ll need so you don’t feel pressure to rush through it.
If you are finding yourself experiencing feelings of loneliness or poor mental well-being, please check out our resources page or contact us.
