Human Resilience

Today on Radio 4 Woman’s Hour there was a phone in about peoples’ experience with mental health problems such as depression. Listening to the moving accounts that people were brave enough to give, I was struck by two things. Firstly the compassion of the presenter who was very validating to callers in her acknowledgement of the courage that it can take to talk about this subject and her admission of her own inability to know how to help her friends suffering from depression. Secondly the fear that people feel about the stigma of mental illness at work, including the attitude of colleagues, managers and the HR department.

With the shocking collapse of Lehman Brothers earlier this week and the daily turbulence and unfolding drama in the financial markets, comes the reality of mass redundancies.

I was saddened to see the footage of staff leaving Lehman Brother’s tower in Canary Wharf and can imagine the devastation this has caused.

Redundancy is a shocking event that can really test someone’s resilience. When change is forced upon us by external events, the chances are that we may not be able to control it and managing the change process may be hampered by our feelings of impotence. When the change has a major impact on our life for example the death of a loved one, divorce, illness or a loss of a job, we will inevitably go through a process of bereavement.

We may find ourselves at one of the stages of transition as described by Eizabeth Kübler-Ross in her work around death and bereavement. (Kübler-Ross, Elizabeth, 1970).

Life is definitely challenging for many people at the moment. Although the challenge may not be specifically located at the workplace, rising living costs, job uncertainty and meeting mortgage payments can all undermine our physical and mental well-being and feeling of being in control.

This can make the demands at work feel more difficult, tempers become more easily frayed and anxiety can rise to the surface, leading to feelings of being overwhelmed and frightened or angry.

Over a period of time our physical and mental health can become affected in a number of ways, such as a change in sleep or eating patterns, headaches, digestive problems, lack of motivation and focus and withdrawal or irritation with others. We can even experience panic attacks when stress accumulates over time.

In order to stay well and manage these challenges try some of the following suggestions.