Mental health awareness is quickly becoming a natural part of our working culture – yet there are still many employees, including dental nurses, who do not know that help is available, or how to access it. Whether you struggle with your mental health, know someone who does, or need to know ‘just in case’, now is the time to brush up your knowledge.
Mental Health at Work
There are many work-based factors that can have a negative impact on our mental health and that can see us in a decline we are unable to get out of because we cannot focus on anything more positive to take away from the negative. Well-known issues include:
- Workload – Perhaps one of the most common complaints is a heavy workload, which induces stress-related anxiety and causes the employee to feel overwhelmed and overworked. This can then disrupt sleeping, eating and overall mood to the point that their mental health begins to suffer because they don’t feel like they can cope.
- Work-life balance – Many employees find themselves working more hours than they initially thought they would, or perhaps taking on overtime to cover living costs and bills. However, this can quickly lead to a sense of burnout and can leave them feeling unfulfilled and as though they have no balance between their time at work and their time at home. This causes a depressive state where the employee feels that all they do is work, and they are then less able to enjoy their time at home as a result.
- Negative work environment – One of the more difficult topics to navigate, a negative working environment can be one of the main factors in preventing an employee from attending work. Whether it’s because of a falling-out with a colleague, or an overarching low staff morale, a toxic or negative environment is not where anyone wants to spend their day, and doing so regularly can cause a decline in mental health that can be hard to get out of.
While these issues can have a devastating effect, they can also be dealt with in ways that can improve the situation and therefore our mental health.
Mental Health Policy
Every practice has a mental health policy, and it’s important that you familiarise yourself with it to the point of knowing what steps to take should you ever need to. Available in your staff handbook, the mental health policy will lay out the support available to you and ways to access it, but will also describe the steps to take should you need assistance or changes to be made at work.
Seeking Support
As per your practice mental health policy, you will be able to seek in-house support through your line of management. Often, this will mean requesting a meeting with the practice manager and/or owner, and discussing with them the issues you are facing that are making you struggle. Examples include a heavy workload, a negative or toxic working environment, difficult hours, or duties you are uncomfortable with. By opening the channel of communication, you are not only asking for help but also giving yourself – and your employer – the opportunity to make reasonable adjustments to help improve your circumstances. If the adjustments do not work for you, then it is worth visiting your GP for further advice, and possibly considering a short break from work until you feel better.
You can also find support within your team. Remember that your colleagues are likely facing the same issues as you, and talking it through with them can be cathartic but may also help you to build a support network that you need in order to be able to manage. It may also be that they are able to help you in some way, be it by assisting with your workload or giving advice that has helped them in the past.
Adjustments
Following your discussion with management, you should be in a position to look at reasonable adjustments at work which can help to reduce your stress and anxiety levels and lead to improved mental health. These may include-
- Workload reduction;
- Adjusting work hours;
- Mediation with team members;
- Improving staff morale/practice positivity.
By initiating such changes within the practice, particularly those that affect you directly, you may start to see improvements to your mental health. These changes need to be consistent and monitored to avoid another decline, however, and you should re-address issues with management should they occur again.
If changes have been made but you are still struggling, it may be time to talk to your doctor. Making an appointment with your GP will allow you to look at the root cause of your declining mental health, and they will be in a better position to suggest helpful treatments suited to you.
Final Thoughts
It can be easy to become bogged down by the daily duties of your job and home life but, with more understanding and awareness of mental health needs, we can all work together to create something more positive, where those who struggle have people they can turn to for help, and where support is available without judgement.
By Natasha Garthwaite BSc, RDN
