Mental health in the workplace: ‘time to talk’ or ‘time to train'?

When we think about mental health training, most of us will naturally think of awareness training. But what if there was training we could all do that could prevent mental health from declining in the first place? How would that change the way we think - and talk - about mental health in the workplace?

On 3 February I was delighted to speak on a panel at our client DFS’s Time to Talk event.

Time to Talk day was launched in 2014 by the charity Mind. It is a campaign designed to challenge the stigma associated with mental health by encouraging people to talk openly about their mental health challenges and difficulties.

To some, my presence as an expert on a Time to Talk panel might seem unusual given that I am a sport psychologist and my expertise is in mental fitness rather than mental health. But over the past four years I have worked hard to bring a different, albeit important voice and perspective to the conversation around mental health.

Building mental fitness to prepare for life’s challenges

As a sport psychologist my primary role is to mentally prepare athletes in advance of the challenges and pressures that they face - essentially building their mental fitness. So, while I certainly understand the importance of ‘time to talk’ and opening up conversations around mental health in the workplace, I often question why we feel we need to wait for problems to emerge before we start taking action.

Just like athletes, our working lives can be mapped out by the challenges that we face and an inability to manage these challenges can lead to mental health decline. So the perspective I bring to the mental health conversation is one of training.

Encouraging organisations to make ‘time to train’ in advance of life’s challenges rather than just reacting to them after they have happened. Making time to develop mental fitness skills such as connection, confidence and stress management that make it easier to cope with life’s demands.

How mental fitness training can help us

There are two primary benefits that come with making time for mental fitness training.

Firstly, mental fitness training can offset the risk of mental health decline occurring in the first place. Just last week we had confirmation that our first randomised control trial is going into press with the European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology.

In this study we demonstrated that participants who did just 18 x 5 minute mental fitness training sessions during a significant life event not only prevented a decline in their mental health, they actually experienced improved mental health from baseline.

Secondly, I do not want this article to leave people under the impression that I believe that all mental health difficulties can be stopped before they begin and that there’s no place for talking. Life will always throw us curve balls that might unsettle us and cause us difficulties. And in these instances we need to talk.

But I strongly believe that we can also train in advance of these conversations so that we are able to talk and listen to one another more effectively. Without this foundational training it is unlikely that a person will have the sufficient connections in place to open-up about the difficulties that they’re experiencing.

So when thinking about mental health in your organisation you may like to take a moment to reflect and ask yourselves, is it ‘time to talk’ or is it ‘time to train?’

The author is Dr Fran Longstaff, Head of Psychology at Fika Mental Fitness.

Article was supplied by Fika Mental Fitness.