Mental health and wellbeing

[Ian Flatters]

How much is it Ian?
 
I think it's a great idea. We've all been affected by mental health somewhere or other, whether it's personally or someone you might know. 

Just over 2k a year for our company but it covers all 9 employed staff and their family. The single person one and family I think was around £300 for the year.

[Joe Newton]

4 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Personally I think if you’ve really gone mental, you know throwing your own shit at people in the shopping mall, fair enough.

 

If you’re just having a bad day and things are getting on top of you, can’t cope etc. Then have a drink, phone a mate, pull yourself together, life is bloody awful sometimes, get used to it.

 

 

I used to think about it like that.  Recently my partner had a bit of a rough time with anxiety after she was a bit physically unwell. She ended up catatonic convinced she was dying, wouldn't even hold our one year old daughter. Was a pretty horrible time for her and everyone involved really. She was prescribed some anti anxiety medication which pretty quickly got her thinking rationally again.

 

Turns out the physical condition that had her all worked up was bought on by anxiety anyway. 

 

In hindsight my previous attitude to anxiety and depression was quite ignorant. 

[Mick Dempsey]

4 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

I don't think Ian is really talking about either of those scenarios.

Sure, and I know I sound callous.

But I do believe that lots of peeps jump on the MH bandwagon when they should understand that life is light and shade, that low periods are just part of the experience.

 

The bar has moved too far towards anyone who just identifies as having burnout or is stressed as a genuine condition as opposed to just having a crap time of it.

[Steve Bullman]

Good thread. I think lots of people think as above, and I also think it’s easy to blur the lines between stress and mental illness.

 

I used to stress over everything when I was younger to the point that it made me feel depressed at times, the reality of it was that I was just too highly strung. That’s completely changed now to the point I don’t stress enough!

 

good thread Ian. I did just take the liberty of running your post through my knobometer and I’m pleased to say you scored a low 7 out of 10 which is a huge improvement for you, keep up the yoga I say!

[Joe Newton]

There's always that one person dragging a thread down...

[devon TWiG]

2 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Sure, and I know I sound callous.

But I do believe that lots of peeps jump on the MH bandwagon when they should understand that life is light and shade, that low periods are just part of the experience.

 

The bar has moved too far towards anyone who just identifies as having burnout or is stressed as a genuine condition as opposed to just having a crap time of it.

nowadays everyone ( almost ) is encouraged to be sensitive and thoughtful and care about everything and everyone which is mostly positive but makes people easily upset and in a way " soft " ( not a criticism )  

 

[skyhuck]

Should a business really be expected to pay for this?

 

Do our taxes not go to fund the NHS? Do you also offer other health cover?

[Ian Flatters]

If anyone's interested it's called heath assured who were with, through peninsula who do our HR and legal stuff. My wifes just told me health assured is the one the NHS use for their own staff so I guess that says it's quite good.

One random thing, I called up about struggling with sleep. I was getting about 1 hour solid then awake for an hour, back to sleep for an hour. I genuinely was convinced it was stress or anxiety that comes with the daily grind of business. Turned out the first thing they told me to do was cut sugar. So I cut sugar down massively (also realising how much sugar I was actually eating and drinking in a day), now I have fantastic sleep compared to before. I get 4 hours straight regularly and I'm edging close to 5 hours, so I hope I'll be onto solid sleep in a few months.

Ps Joe, I know kind of what your going through. My wife struggles horrendously with aniexty after having a major wobble mental a few years back after having to have a full hip replacement and being told that she could never have children naturally or be pregnant as it would put her in a wheel chair for the remainder of her life (it's a pretty hard pill to swallow that one so I can appreciate how she felt as I felt awful too, but life is what it is and we can always adopt I guess). She's much better and off pills, for her yoga in the morning really helped her and counciling with someone better at it than me was worth it too as I'm pretty rubbish at that thing.

[Mick Dempsey]

My Missus has to see a workplace doctor every year or so.

She has to answer a number of questions, she says that the doc constantly asks 

“does that make you stressed?” Or “do you feel burned out?” Actively looking for a positive answer so she could sign her off for as long as my wife decides she isn’t quite right.

 

There is a whole industry that has built up around it in the last 20 years.

 

No offence to anyone who has genuinely suffered or has family that does.

 

 

[Steve Bullman]

5 minutes ago, skyhuck said:

Should a business really be expected to pay for this?

 

Do our taxes not go to fund the NHS? Do you also offer other health cover?

No they shouldn’t, Ian’s doing it because he’s a stand up boss obviously and cares and wants to go one step further for his employees, commendable I’d say.