Article
Inspired by good health
I will be honest and say this article is inspired by our MD, Bev Findlay who is a champion at Chase & Holland for good Mental Health. It was with this in mind that Bev has been studying and doing courses about mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
I think the real changing point for me and when she convinced me we should be investing in the subject was when she asked the question “what does mental health mean to you?” My response, I am embarrassed to say was negative i.e. I thought of people suffering and having generally a rough time of it. In addition, I was thinking of the cost to the business when someone is unable to play their part in the organisation.
How wrong was I, the starting point when thinking about mental health must be thinking of what you can do to promote good health, rather than what poor health looks like.
In the past I have talked about what you can do to ensure you are at your best mentally from exercising to sleeping well and I am not going to cover that again. What I want to talk about is what is called the Stress Container.
The concept is so simple, and the diagram shows what is meant really well, but basically it is understanding firstly what the capacity of your stress container is. After this it is focusing on making sure it never gets beyond capacity by managing the good things and bad things that go in.
Stress flows into the container and if the container overflows, problems develop – emotional snapping! Helpful coping strategies all the taps to work and let the stress out. The size of your stress container varies depending on how much sleep you have and a person’s vulnerability to stress.
Stress is caused generally by Work, Family, Money, Relationships, Trauma, Health and Bereavement Our ability to cope with what life throws at us is often about balancing the equation of Sleep, Exercise, Balanced Diet and Communicating how you feel, against over working, drinking too much, and bottling everything up.
So, in summary I love the concept of the Stress Container it is easy to relate to and a useful tool for managing your own stress levels. For more details go on www.mhfaengland.org
