Companies that do not deal Mental health of employees They may be sabotaging themselves, a new study suggests.
Adults with social anxiety and depression tend to work fewer hours, according to a recent study Published in Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice.
Researchers analyzed data from 250 adults aged 18 to 60 who were diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. Over a 52-week period, they tracked how many hours each participant worked and recorded symptoms of anxiety and depression to see if their mental state could be predicted by hours.
Both CEOs and employees are negatively affected when poor mental health persists, says Natalie Datillo, a clinical psychologist and instructor at Harvard Medical School. Depression and anxiety are treated differently, but both cause people to isolate themselves, she says.
“What comes with avoidance is isolation and withdrawal and limiting our ability to have positively reinforcing experiences,” she says.
Work can provide some safeguards that are often overlooked.
“Work has a protective effect on our mental health,” she says. “In general, work is good for us from a mental health point of view. It provides structure to our lives, it gives us something to do, it allows us the opportunity to interact with other people, not to mention it provides us with an income.”
‘The less we do, the less likely we are to experience things that make us feel better’
A person struggling with some anxious tendencies might find it challenging to go to work, give presentations, and interact with co-workers, but in the end, their decision to do so is not tormented.
“For the most part, we can put it together and do it and feel better afterward,” Datillo says. “With people who struggle with an anxiety disorder, they don’t feel better. They spend the rest of the day overcoming or breaking down or obsessing over how they did it, what other people think.”
If they are depressed, harsh self-criticism may appear. This can cause them to leave early, call in sick, and only isolate them more.
Ironically, the more they avoid work, the more severe their anxiety and depression symptoms can become, Datillo says.
“The less we do and the more we avoid, the less likely we are to experience things that make us feel better,” she says.
Taking care of the mental health of their employees, companies could actually help their bottom line.
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