Mental Health in the Workplace

There are few things I like talking about more than about reducing stress through the narrative discourse using the first person viewpoint, first, because of the results second, because, once a client has done it, it is almost like starting to write on a clean slate. I would say that doing this work is "a return to life". It is a wonderful way to clean up the past and reach levels of joy and fulfilment never reached before. 

Statistics  on mental health in the workplace
For some unknown reason, the situation of mental illness in the workplace is far more alarming than Health Canada statistics has recognized since 2004. Today, it is estimated that one out of every five Canadians experience symptoms of distress in the workplace. Poor performance is often "the straw that breaks the camel's back".

Read:
http://aunomdelasante.blogspot.ca/2012/06/we-measure-tree-by-its-root-system.html

When companies previously invested in security cameras before, it was for safety reasons. But since 2004, cameras have caught more events than companies bargained for with episodes of rage (such as when a man was filmed smacking his monitor before batting it off his desk with its keyboard), distracted employees handing back late assignments, depression accounting for long-term absenteism, and even suicides.

Read:
http://aunomdelasante.blogspot.ca/2012/04/addicted-to-stress.html

Bullying and adjustment disorder

All are signs of changes occurring in the way people think, act and cope. Incapacitating symptoms often stem from overwhelming pressure and an employee experiencing adjustment disorder will feel burnt out. There is bullying in the workplace as well, leaving workers isolated and somehow feeling responsable for the abuse. The guilt stems from the feeling of being different and the erroneous thought that this difference provokes others into the bullying behaviors. Many experience anxiety disorder, which when prolonged, can lead to panic disorder rendering one incapable to carry out everyday tasks.

Depression stemming from work conditions
Often such situations become a long term condition and a vulnerable employee might not even recognize this as a depression. It is important for all in the workplace to notice changes such as important weight loss or weight gain, poor sleep habits and irritable outbursts which are symptoms which indicate major depression.

Other factors related to depression

Although stress at work is a major factor in depression, these symptoms may also signal thyroid dysfunction, sleep disorders and even chronic pain and it is often hard to know which came first. Each additional stress adds up to a level of impairment.

Read:
http://aunomdelasante.blogspot.ca/2012/02/depression-kills-spirit.html

Every day situations-work, financial problems, family, health and relationship issues-may trigger depressive symptoms, especially when there is a feeling of helplessness that cannot be addressed. I'm think of the situation where a mother who went to court lost her child after being told she has to keep him safe if she wants him back in a home where 16 other people live. Having no education and no means of changing her situation, she cannot see the day when things will change. Unfortunately, when situations are not resolved, they become chronic.

Read:
http://aunomdelasante.blogspot.ca/2012/02/depression-kills-spirit.html

Treatment of depression

Most doctors now agree that it is important to treat depression agressively because one bout of depression usually augments the risk of future episodes, waxing and waning on and off. Drug therapy-antidepressant drugs-is usually good to lower anxiety. Unfortunately, trying to match drug to patient may take some trial and error time the patient is ill able to withstand. Doctor also recommend physical activities but a lot of depressive people say they do not have the energy to walk, run or lift weights.

A dual approach of drug and emotional talk therapy helps to deal with depression or burn out in order to get to the root of the problem while helping to find solutions and increasing well-being. 

Read:
http://aunomdelasante.blogspot.ca/2011/11/all-roads-lead-back-to-you.html

The accent on changing thoughts and behavior as well as confiding to a neutral professional will generally contribute to the easing of the situation. It is generally recognized that relationship issues, such as a sense of loss, conflicts and life changing circumstances affect the mind, the heart and the spirit. Researchers at McGill University have linked depression with heart conditions, diabetes and various skin conditions.

Wellness strategy programs
Depressions and burn out are so serious that many companies have invested in wellness strategies program to address mental illness in the workplace. Many companies deal with stress and other health issues with wellness strategies such as gym and nutrition programs, but the effort isn't a replacement for making the workplace a better place to be. Being just a passive distributor of information and tools will not reverse the trend and current rates of disability. It puts the onus on the worker and the reasoning is that it's up to the worker to find a correction. It ends up showing that some companies don't value their employees.

The cost of disability on Canadian businesses
The cost of mental illness on Canadian businesses takes a tremendous toll on both employees and companies-depressions and burn-out, the leading factors of disability among people between ages of 16 to 45 years old. But unless companies are open enough to talk about these problems and show they value their work force instead of ignoring the workplace growing role in mental illness, the constant over-stimulation put on the workers' bodies and minds will only continue to rise. When I was a young sociologist, this is what I was studying when I first came out of University. Today, some thrity years later, it is obvious that the price tag attached to productivity is the disability claims. Workplace conflicts cost employers between 6 to 10 billion dollars and fallouts create a "ripple effect" among co-workers and colleagues who experience low morale and high turnover rates.

Therapy clears things up as the person relates stories and evacuates emotions-putting responsibility where it lies. As tensions and moods stabilize, changes of thoughts and behaviors are considered and the person selects different adjustment strategies to be used in the follow-up period. When she has successfully reintegrated the workplace, she might decide to continue processing different aspects of her childhood. It is very possible that bullying occurred at early stages of development and those events need to be understood and healed.

Read:
http://aunomdelasante.blogspot.ca/2012/06/tunnel-therapy-is-powerful-tool-to.html

Message de Lorraine Loranger

Our fast-moving modern lives prevent us from following our natural rhythm. Based on hyperactivity, competition, and will, we hold in contempt our fatigue and stress. As we go beyond, producing efforts upon efforts, we buck up, we hang on, we persist and end up...exhausted.

Let us say that I have a philosophy for doing the work I do and the way I do it. Accounts of significant events in the life of the narrator have a plot, which is less often chronological and more often arranged according to a principle determined by the nature of the help the person needs. It is non-conventional: narration in the sense that it is used here deals with time, description, as well as context. 

"Addicted to Stress" inspired by the work of Dr. Hans Selye

There are few things I like talking about more than about reducing stress through the narrative discourse using the first person viewpoint, first, because of the results second, because, once a client has done it, it is almost like starting to write on a clean slate. I would say that doing this work is "a return to life". It is a wonderful way to clean up the past and reach levels of joy and fulfilment never reached before. 

When we talk of stress, there are people who say they that stress is good! I say there are different kinds of stress. The stress that keeps ypu up at night, that leaves you tired and out of joint to do what life demands of you is bad stress. The problem is that some people cumulate the effects of their stress, not only in their minds but also in their bodies. STRESS BREAKS US!

"The Stress of Life"

"It is not to see something first but to establish solid connections between the previously known and the hitherto unknown, that constitutes the essence of scientific discovery. It is this process of tying together which can best promote true understanding and real progress"

Hans Selye, M.D. "The Stress of Life"

In his book, "When the Body Says No: the Cost of Hidden Stress", Gabor Maté asks these very pertinent questions:

-When is stress too much?

-What is your fear?

-Are you fearful that if you don't take on something, you might be rejected or perceived as weak?

-Are you afraid that if you stop, you will feel your unhappiness?

-Or does being so busy define you and provide you with a sense of your identity?

-Is that how you measure your self-value?

An ideal candidate for stress

This is the story of my friend Sonia. She is a real person and for years she had reminded me of a Philadelphia cheese commercial on TV where an angel claimed running to yoga classes stressed her. 

                                                           Addicted to Stress

Seing the whole picture
Even if I considered my friend Sonia a serious contender for being a zen master, I used to think I wasn't seing the whole picture. She walked two hours a day, meditated 5 days a week, belonged to the gym, went swimming every other day, but despite these healthy habits, her life was out of control. Long hours in her work as an nurse and volunteer commitments were taking their toll on her sunny disposition until she realized she prided herself on her ability to handle her multi-task juggling act to the detriment of a more manageable lifestyle. This is when she understood that she was addicted to stress.

Adrenalin is like a drug

As a child, my friend Sonia came from a dysfonctional family where all kinds of things were happening. So that through her frantic lifestyle, she was accustomed to high level of cortisol and adrenalin. She did not perceive her lifestyle as stressful until she felt out of control after her thyroid ceased to function properly. She was used to the level of stress she had experienced as a youngster growing up in her whacky family.

Even after stopping the threadmill, my friend was tempted to return to old habits, but after some inner work, she started getting her life in real balance.

Alarming statistics about extreme stress
Statistics Canada claims 1.5 million women between the ages of 20 to 44 years old say they suffer from "extreme stress". Today, women are proud of their ability to shoulder every demand, equating stress with success.

The consequences of chronic stress
The consequences of chronic stress range from exasperating-that cold that you can't kick off, overeating, chain smoking, drinking to sleep better-to downright illnesses and diseases-cancer, depression, hypertension, diabetes. Research shows that stress hormones are passed to the foetus in utero, thereby upping the risk of newborn babies having serious health issues, such as asthma and attention deficits.

The "fight or flight" response is programmed in our brain

If you've read other articles pertaining to psychosomatics, you know that when we meet a stressful situation or have been living under stress for a while, our adrenal glands release hormones-cortisol, adrenalin and noradrenalin-kicking up our "fight or flight" response, shutting down other functions such as sleep and immune response to metabolize energy on behalf of the body and to protect the organism from a perceived danger.

The body reveals the level of stress

These same hormones often become addictive so that someone might seek the rush that comes with it and will even create stress, often developing symptoms of depression when not stressed out.

The best gauge on whether or not there is too much stress in your life is your body. Excessive stress can cause a range of symptoms-anxiety, back pain, repeated colds, disruption in sleep pattern, insomnia, skin eruptions, migraine headaches, muscular pain and even eating disorders. These conditions should alert you that your organism is on overload. All these symptoms impact your ability to conduct your life and how you make your decisions. Over time, these conditions can wreck havoc on your bone structure, on your gastro-intestinal track, on your coronaries, on your nervous system, and on your immune system which can lead to serious diseases.

Our immune system does not exist in isolation from daily experience
Do not be fooled: even if medical textbooks take on an exclusively biological view of the body showing that dualism still colours beliefs on health and illness, our immune system does not exist in isolation from daily experience.

To read: When the Body Says NO: The Cost of Hidden Stress, Gabor Maté, Vintage Canada Edition, 2004.

Message from Lorraine Loranger Our fast-moving modern lives prevent us from following our natural rhythm. Based on hyperactivity, competition, and will, we hold in contempt our fatigue and stress. As we go beyond, producing efforts upon efforts, we buck up, we hang on, we persist and end up...exhausted. I have a philosophy for doing the work I do and the way I do it. Accounts of significant events in the life of the narrator have a plot, which is less often chronological and more often arranged according to a principle determined by the nature of the help the person needs. It is non-conventional: narration in the sense that it is used here deals with description, time, as well as context.  Thank you for your continuous support making sure education touches all your contacts.

DEPRESSION KILLS THE SPIRIT

There are few things I like talking about more than about reducing stress through the narrative discourse using the first person viewpoint, first, because of the results second, because, once a client has done it, it is almost like starting to write on a clean slate. I would say that doing this work is "a return to life". It is a wonderful way to clean up the past and reach levels of joy and fulfilment never reached before. 

Following our natural rhythm is unnatural in this day and age
Our fast-moving modern lives prevent us from following our natural rhythm. Based on hyperactivity, competition, agressivity, and will, we hold in contempt our fatigue, when it is our best alarm system. We go beyond, producing efforts upon efforts. And from fatigue, we buck up, we hang on, we persist and end up...exhausted.

Our athletes give all they have to be on a podium with a medal. When they fail, they have to give up that dream for a long while and it can be devastating, changing the course of their life.

Exhaustion produces two reactions

Exhaustion produces two reactions: depression and agitation. The exhausted is caracterized by two poles: he depresses and he is anxious and agitated.

Depression is inhibiting with its incapacity to act

In depression, activity is greatly reduced: gestures, speech, digestive functions are troubled, then slowed. Thinness, trembling, vision blurs, tachicardia appear; depression is inhibiting and debilitating with its incapacity to act. The physical and mental energy is insufficient to accomplish even ordinary tasks. It is normal that the depressed refuses to handle any situation demanding action: the nervous system, slowed down or bogged down, does not allow it anymore.

Depression may appear after a prolonged stressful situation

Depression, with its psychological component, appears after prolonged stressful situations, doubts, anxiety-provoking circumstances and fears, and by exhaustion, brings about a state of free-falling tension. Often insomniac, the depressed experiences migraine headaches, a sense of increasing physical and mental weariness, and therefore, an inability to concentrate. Mania and tics develop, and on top of physical ailments, the depressed is afraid of going crazy. Emotions are in upheaval and uncontrollable.

Deliberate willfulness plunges the depressed into apathy

"Willfulness" is the quality most lacking for the depressed. The dispersion of deliberate willfulness plunges the depressed into an apathy he does not recognize.

If, what is described here resembles your problem, you need to see a doctor. But you also need to take care of your spirit because sleeping better is not going to remove whatever it is that brought this on.

The need to revise the situations at the origin of the depression

A psychotherapy is nessecary to revise the situations originating in the stress and at least, to offer you new methods of handling your stress.

Unraveling childhood conditionning patterns changes cognitive references

Unraveling childhood conditionning patterns changes cognitive references and processes to allow you to act differently in any given situation.

Message from Lorraine Loranger

Our fast-moving modern lives prevent us from following our natural rhythm. Based on hyperactivity, competition, and will, we hold in contempt our fatigue and stress. As we go beyond, producing efforts upon efforts, we buck up, we hang on, we persist and end up...exhausted.

Let us say that I have a philosophy for doing the work I do and the way I do it. Accounts of significant events in the life of the narrator have a plot, which is less often chronological and more often arranged according to a principle determined by the nature of the help the person needs. It is non-conventional: narration in the sense that it is used here deals with description, time, as well as context. 

Thank you for your continuous support making sure education touches all your contacts.