Taking Charge of Your Wellness at Work in 2024
Written by Melissa Schenkman, MPH, MSJ
What does a “healthy job” or “wellness in the workplace” mean to you?
If you were to look up “wellness” in the good old Merriam-Webster dictionary, you would find that it’s defined as “the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal.” Emphasis on that last part.
Wellness has to be an “actively sought goal,” which is why each of us, as an employee—regardless of where our job falls in a company’s hierarchy—plays a key role in driving our own health, wellness, and work-life balance—an incredibly important aspect of our job and critical factor into whether or not we choose to stay in a particular role or accept a job offer.
Of all the health topics that my friends and our YMyHeatlh Contributors have talked with me about over the past three years, one of the most popular is about their work life and its impact—positive and unfortunately more often, negative—on their personal health.
Incredibly, estimates have found that the average person spends a third of his or her life or 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime. So, it should be no surprise that our health is being deeply affected by the health of the job environment we are working in.
For the many millennials I have spoken with across the United States, the job environment can mean everything from the way their coworkers and managers treat them, how the work they do is genuinely valued or not, the respect and autonomy or lack thereof that they receive in their position when it comes to decision making, how leadership treats remote work and flexible scheduling, whether or not you can truly progress at a company to higher-up roles, how well companies work with employees who also are managing a chronic illness, how they view preventive healthcare and if they create barriers to getting it, and how they treat you when you try to use your well-earned vacation time, and much more.
All of these pieces to the puzzle of what makes for wellness in the workplace, are leading to tremendously negative effects on mental health and physical health when they are not treated in health-promoting ways that truly value employees.
It is with this in mind and the stories of many hard-working millennials whose health is constantly being impacted by an unwell workplace, that we kick off YMyHealth’s series on Workplace Wellness.
We will explore the impact of our jobs on all aspects of our mental health, our physical health, and how increasing flexibility can be a gamechanger, by sharing real-life, personal stories and providing you with strategies for breaking down the barriers so many of us face to being healthy in both our careers and in life.
How Employers Affect Mental Health
Out of all the parts of your health that your job can affect, these days, there is no question that hands down, your mental health is what is affected the most. At least, this was overwhelmingly obvious from the many millennials I have spoken with across a variety of industries.
Why? It stems from a term that you may not have heard of, but a concept that you will likely find familiar. It’s called: “psychological safety.” It’s the belief that you can speak up in your job to your colleagues and direct manager without the risk of punishment or humiliation.
While this safety net develops over time, sadly, many jobs may say they do so on paper in a written policy or verbally from management, but in practice clearly, such psychological safety does not exist.
You know what I am talking about. There is always at least one manager or director whom you have had to work with who puts on an image of wanting to be ‘woke’ about work-life balance.
Yet, when you try to apply that in your own work, turns around and makes it extremely difficult for you to take time off, giving you last-minute assignments or asking you to take on a leadership role on a project for your ‘professional development’ when it's clearly not within your job responsibilities. They simply do not want to do the work and put it off on your plate because they have the power to do so.
Working in an environment where management makes you feel psychologically unsafe, such as one where you cannot admit and discuss mistakes or openly address tough issues without retaliation in your job, can lead to increased anxiety about coming to work, depression, burnout, sleep issues, and feelings of loneliness and exclusion. All of this can impact your overall job performance, regardless of how dedicated an employee you are, and significantly decrease your overall quality of life.
While we plan to take a hard look at psychological safety, its forms and impacts on our health in our series, for now, we encourage each of you to ask yourself: “Do I feel psychologically safe in my job?”
If you are one of the many out there who feel your mental health is suffering from your job today, here are some first steps you can take to start improving it:
Take advantage of mental health services and resources offered by your employer. Seek help when needed.
Practice mindfulness, meditation, and other stress-relieving techniques during the workday.
Set boundaries around working hours and "unplugging" to avoid burnout.
Focus on Physical Health
Experiencing stress from your job psychologically, especially when it’s chronic, can also affect how healthy you are physically.
Physical signs that you are under stress can include headaches, difficulty concentrating and sleeping. Long term, walking around with high levels of stress hormones (cortisol) can lead to high blood pressure and diabetes—both of which are risk factors for an even bigger problem: heart disease.
To add onto this, when we are stressed at work and limited on time, we are more likely to make poor food choices and to not carve out the time to exercise. All of which can be a recipe for disaster when it comes to our physical health.
So instead of giving ourselves an easy out from the stress, when it comes to our diets and exercise, many say that finding ways to make these aspects of our lives a priority despite the obstacles actually helps to counteract the unhealthiness in a job and take back control or our own personal health (which is what’s more important lifelong).
Here are some ways to make physical health your focus even with the busiest of schedules:
Participate in workplace wellness programs like fitness classes, steps challenges, or health screenings.
If you do not have workplace wellness programs, start your own walking or running group. As an added bonus, it’s a great way for coworkers from different departments to get to know each other and bond.
Take walking or standing breaks during the day to reduce sedentary time.
Eat nutritious snacks and meals to maintain energy and productivity.
Increase Flexibility Where Possible
Having options for navigating the many meetings and work deadlines on your plate so you can be “in two places at once” (well, sort of) is key to making strides in staying physically and mentally healthy as much as possible regardless of the state of health your job is in.
Research has shown that flexibility in work location and schedule gives people a sense of job control and increases job satisfaction. As a result, it improves our health and well-being.
One way it does this is by making it possible to almost be “in two places at once” when you need to because you can accomplish high-quality work for your employer while using the saved time from a commute to take care of preventive health care appointments, make sure you eat a healthy lunch, workout, or hopefully all three. The flexibility in scheduling allows you to have dedicated time for your work and to be a caregiver to your family, making it less likely for you to sacrifice on either end.
Consider these strategies for increasing your flexibility, and ultimately, work-life balance:
Ask about remote work options or flexible schedules if needed for work-life balance.
Use slack times to take care of personal tasks to create more after-work free time.
Discuss your workload with your manager if feeling overwhelmed or overworked.
How to Evaluate Employers on Workplace Wellness
Are you on the hunt for a new job? Or do you simply want to determine how much wellness is really in your workplace? Check out these tips for making that call:
Try to gauge how much employees enjoy working there and if the culture supports wellness.
Look for workplaces that provide flexibility in when and where work gets done.
Research the company culture to ensure wellness is a priority.
Seek companies that actively monitor employee workload and prevent burnout.
Look for comprehensive benefits packages that include mental health services.
Ask about remote work opportunities and work-life balance policies.
Look for onsite amenities like fitness centers, walking trails, nap pods, etc.
Look at employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor for insight into wellness and work-life balance.
Give preference to employers who invest heavily in employee health and wellbeing.
Conclusion
A culture of health starts with you and “the company you keep” (no pun intended).
The small choices you make each day add up to big differences in your overall physical and mental health. That’s why it is incredibly important to speak up when your workload is too high and preventing you from achieving your work-life balance needs.
Your health, whether you are in your 20s, 30s, or 40s, matters and what you have the time to do now is setting the stage for the quality of life you will have as you age.
Take advantage of workplace wellness opportunities and continually evaluate how making small changes to your schedule can open up windows of opportunity for taking time to care for your mental and physical health.
Stay tuned for more in our Workplace Wellness Story Series.
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