Always working? How to protect your mental health as a high-level executive
Working long hours, managing teams, and balancing various demands can make maintaining good mental health drop down your list of priorities.
According to Mental Health and Work, a report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1 in 6 people experience mental health problems in the workplace. Maintaining good mental health is imperative for individual and company success. And high-level executives should be leading the way.
Related: Cultivating wellness: Mental health training in the workplace
However, working long hours, managing teams, and balancing various demands can make maintaining good mental health drop down your list of priorities.
Why executives should safeguard their mental health
Below are some of the reasons why executives should safeguard their mental health:
- Good mental health is important to ensure executives are perceptive and have sharp attention to detail.
- Maintaining good mental health also helps leaders effectively read body language, tone of voice, and attitudes, and respond appropriately.
- Good mental health allows for emotional intelligence and helps drive empathetic leadership.
- Good mental health helps leaders be available to their teams and their clients.
If you are struggling with mental health problems, there are many rehab centers offering executive treatment, so it’s important to receive treatment and do what you can to take proactive steps towards a healthier mind. Read on to find out what you can do to safeguard your mental health as a high-level executive.
Maintain good eating habits and nutrition
If you are struggling with mental health problems, often one of the last things you want to do is eat well. However, prioritizing good eating habits and nutrition is one of the best things you can do to positively manage your mental health.
According to Bupa, 6 in 10 business leaders with mental health symptoms have turned to potentially unhealthy coping mechanisms rather than seeking help. Eating badly and drinking excessively are two such unhealthy coping mechanisms and they only make symptoms worse.
Just like a car, your brain requires fuel to perform well. Consuming a diet high in sufficient vitamins, protein, minerals, and antioxidants is essential for maintaining healthy brain function and managing your mental health struggles.
Take mental health days
Taking mental health days is one of the best ways to maintain your mental health for longer. Too many high-level executives wait until they are almost completely burnt out before they admit to needing some time off. This doesn’t do anyone any good.
Taking mental health days ensures you get the rest you need so that you can lead your team more effectively, reduce burnout, and set a positive example for your workforce. Sadly, we live in a culture where working overtime is highly praised, where sacrificing time-off and time spent with family in favor of work is championed. And it’s making us sick. It’s time to take mental health days and it’s time for that to be okay.
Don’t neglect your social life
For many business executives, maintaining a social life in addition to work responsibilities feels impossible. However, it is imperative in helping manage your symptoms of mental health. According to South University, social interaction is essential to every aspect of our health as humans. In fact, research has found that having strong community bonds encourages both good emotional and physical health.
When things get tough and you feel like you’re drowning, knowing that there are people around you who can offer their support makes all the difference. Having a community helps illuminate feelings of loneliness and isolation that so often cause mental health problems to worsen. So, make an effort to maintain a good social life. No matter how busy work gets, it shouldn’t require you to sacrifice your own mental wellbeing. So, when you’re invited out by friends, make the time and effort to attend. It is also important to check-in with your family on a regular basis, too.
Don’t take work home
This is one of the biggest traps that high-level executives fall into. Can’t finish all that work during office hours? Have a big project to sign off on before the morning? Need to squeeze a couple more hours in before the end of the week? Taking work home has become the new norm and it’s a dangerous pattern to fall into.
Not only can it cause your relationships to suffer, but it can drastically affect the state of your mental health. When you bring work home with you, it’s hard to turn off and create that separation between work life and home life. To protect your mental health, as well as your relationships with your loved ones, it is important to maintain clear boundaries so that you can be present when it matters most.
Get quality sleep
Nobody can manage effectively when they haven’t had quality sleep. How are you supposed to pay attention to the small details when all you can think about is how heavy your eyes feel and how much you want to take a nap? According to The Mental Health Foundation, up to one-third of the population suffer from insomnia or other sleep-related problems.
In today’s hustle culture, we’re not taking sleep seriously enough. You cannot work excruciatingly long hours on barely any sleep and expect to stay healthy, mentally or physically. It won’t take long until you burn out completely.
You should be aiming to get 8 hours of sleep every night in order for your body to work at its optimum level.
Delegate to your team members
Often, high-level executives feel like a lot of pressure sits on their shoulders and, as such, they can find it difficult to pass responsibilities on to other members of their team. However, working alone in this way isn’t just isolating, it is also incredibly difficult and can lead to long work hours, missed deadlines, and worsening mental health symptoms.
If you want to be a great leader, it’s important to release some of the control you hold and trust that other people can do a good job, too. Delegating to your team members isn’t just about reducing your workload so that you can prioritize your mental health, it’s also about showing your trust for other members of your team and allowing them to play a role in the success of the business also.
Final thoughts
Protecting your mental health as a high-level executive can be a challenge all on its own, never mind adding this to your mounting pile of responsibilities. However, when you prioritize taking care of your mental health you will discover that all those other things, all those responsibilities vying for your time and attention, will become a little bit easier to manage. And, you will become a better leader as a result.
Gemma Hart is an independent HR professional working remotely from as many coffee shops as she can find. Since graduating in 2013, Gemma has gained experience in a number of HR roles but now looks to grown her personal brand and connect with leading professionals in the field.
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