The stresses and strains of running a business can take its toll on our personal health and wellbeing. As a result, you can face a range of challenges that can affect your mental health.
The following information comes from the experts at Beyond Blue’s Heads up program.
Early warning signs
When you are busy with your business, you may not notice the signs or changes in your behaviour, thoughts or feelings that may indicate you are struggling with your mental health.
Sometimes the first person to notice that you are not yourself may be a family member, friend or business partner.
It’s important to be aware of some of the common signs and symptoms that can let you know that you may be struggling with your mental health.
Some of the early warning signs are:
- finding it difficult to concentrate on tasks
- feeling tired and fatigued
- being unusually tearful or emotional
- getting angry easily or frustrated with tasks or people
- drinking alcohol to cope
- finding it hard to make decisions
- avoiding social situations.
One way to consider where you are at with your mental health is to complete Beyond Blue’s Anxiety and depression checklist.
This is a simple checklist that can help to direct you to supports and resources based on your experiences in the past four weeks.
More mental health resources for business owners and managers
We’ve captured some of Beyond Blue’s key advice for small business owners in the Tips for looking after your mental health fact sheet.
Keep in mind that what works is different for everyone, so try different things until you find what works for you.
A big thanks to Beyond Blue for allowing us to reproduce some of their material in our free resources.
However what we have published here is just the tip of the iceberg.
Take a look at the Heads up program website to see the wide array of mental health resources that Beyond Blue and the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance have created for businesses, large and small, for managers, the boardroom and employees.
