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Three signs that your mental health may be waning (and what to do about it)

It's mental health awareness week, so we thought it's a good time to ask Liebfrog associate Sonia Lospitao to share her thoughts on mental health, what early warning signs to look out for, and what to do about them.  

Sonia is a professional certified coach and specialises in communications, work performance and mental wellbeing.
 

Sonia Lospitao

Mental health is critical to a long and fulfilling professional life. Unfortunately, it’s still something many of us tiptoe around, due to persistent negative connotations and stigma. It’s also, no doubt, why all too often we ignore the early signs of mental ill-health. 

Rather than tune into ourselves we tune out – keeping busy, ploughing on, and thinking another coffee is all the fix we need. But it isn’t. And ignoring the warning signs is a sure-fire way to end up burnt out. 

“If you’re a runner and you hurt your ankle, you don’t ignore it. You go to a physio or a doctor to get it checked, to avoid long-term injury. It’s like that for mental wellbeing. You must take care of yourself, look after your needs, because if you don’t, if you’re constantly pushing on that’s not healthy. It’s not sustainable,” says Sonia Lospitao, professional certified coach and associate at Liebfrog, who specialises in communications, work performance, and mental health.

Three early warning signs that your mental health might not be tip top 

To prevent mental ill-being, we need to recognise the early signals, which can show up long before we crash. Sonia offers three red flags busy professionals should be on the lookout for. 
 

• Avoidance techniques. If someone asks you how things are going at work and you say “fine” when they’re not, this could indicate an issue. Avoiding a topic of conversation altogether is also a red flag. 
  
  “When we’re comfortable with something, we’re willing to talk about it. If we’re not even talking about the problem, it can indicate we aren’t aware it’s a problem, and that’s a problem,” explains Sonia.
  
  

• Secret wishes. If you find yourself secretly wishing you could have more sleep for example, or more time to yourself, then listen. Have regular check-ins with yourself to reflect on how you are feeling and what you need. 
  
  “It’s not easy. We’re good at asking others, but we rarely do it for ourselves. The more regularly we check-in with ourselves, to listen to our body, the easier it becomes to see the warning signals early on,” says Sonia. 
  
  

• Super busyness. It’s difficult to shift the perception that busy is good. Work hard, play hard. Burn the candle at both ends. We almost make this way of working and living a badge of honour. The trouble is, we forget we are the candle and what we’re doing is burning ourselves out twice as fast. 
   

Mental health is like physical health. When we’re not physically fit, we can’t run a marathon. When we’re not mentally fit, we can’t perform and do a good job. It’s then very difficult to become the best version of ourselves. 

“Often, by the time we realise our mental wellbeing isn’t great, it’s because our body has been degraded too – neglected by lack of exercise, sleep, or nourishment.” says Sonia.

What to do if you recognise early warning signs in yourself 

Recognition of any of these early signals isn’t a bad thing, quite the opposite. It’s a first step to taking course correcting action. 

“Prevention is far more effective than addressing mental health challenges, like burnout, once they show up,” says Sonia. 

But what we must then do is make some changes and ACT. 

A - Ask yourself regularly how you are feeling – yoga, meditation, and mindfulness are great ways to quieten the mind and listen to what your body wants and needs. What are its secret wishes?

C - Course correct – You don’t have to stop everything but do respond to what your body is telling you. Build some space in to your schedule to give your brain and body a break. 

T - Talk to someone – be it a friend, a colleague, a coach, or a mental health professional – it really is good to talk. 

“When we hurt ourselves physically, we change what we’re doing, we seek out the help we need, without feeling shame or stigma – we need to bring that mindset to mental health,” says Sonia.

But can we really achieve that in the workplace?

Fostering the conversation about mental health at work

Sonia believes while there’s still a long way to go, it is possible. And remembering these three things can go a long way to helping normalise mental health conversations in the workplace.

• Everyone experiences mental health issues at different points in their lives and for different reasons. It’s not a reflection of anyone’s resilience, intelligence or capability. It’s like COVID – when it hits you, it hits you. There’s no discrimination.
   

• Mental health challenges are usually temporary. When something big hits, we can feel vulnerable, so it’s important to remember this is not a permanent state. It’s like riding a wave, there’s a way to do it, to get out - and we do. It is something innate in human nature, that we can overcome challenges, that we have what it takes to do so.
   

• When you’re struggling with your mental health, don’t believe everything you’re telling yourself. It’s natural to have negative thoughts, but it’s important to remember they are not always true. When we’re in a dark and negative place, we aren’t seeing ourselves clearly, we aren’t seeing the big picture. That’s why, during such times, it’s so important to step back, get some rest, and talk to someone. 

May 2023

Sonia Lospitao is a professional certified coach and associate at Liebfrog. She specialises in communications, work performance and mental wellbeing.

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