Experience on workplace mental health training

Psychological problems in the workplace are never a single attribution of "the individual is too pretentious and has poor stress tolerance", but is the result of the superposition of individual status, organizational environment, and industry characteristics. There is no "universal adjustment formula" that applies to everyone. The most effective way to relieve yourself is the one that makes you feel comfortable.

It's a coincidence that three days before the training, I had just finished the big night when the project was launched. I shed tears over the requirements document that was revised to the eighth version. At that time, I was still scolding myself repeatedly for being useless. Why couldn't I bear the pressure? If I had put it aside before, I would have suppressed this emotion and drank a few mouthfuls of chicken soup that "the workplace doesn't believe in tears" and continued to work. This time I went with the mentality of "it's good to fish for two hours anyway". Unexpectedly, I hit a lot of points that I hadn't thought about before.

Two teachers were invited to the training that day, and their opinions were quite different. The first one was a professor of clinical psychology in the psychology department of a university. He gave us a set of industry survey data: the job burnout rate in high-pressure industries such as the Internet, finance, and education and training exceeds 62%. Nearly 40% of employees have experienced symptoms of anxiety and insomnia. This is not an isolated case at all. His core point of view is to do "rigid boundary cutting", turn off the notifications of work software after get off work, and reply to non-urgent messages the next day. Don't take your work emotions home. To put it bluntly, "work hard at work, and save your life after get off work", and don't engage in work-life integration.

Just as he was saying this, a colleague from the sales department raised his hand to retort, saying that if a customer sends me a message at ten o'clock in the evening, I won't reply. If the order is shipped, will you make up for my commission? The second teacher was a senior consultant who had been working as an EAP consultant in an Internet company for eight years. She dealt with frontline employees every day. She smiled and accepted this statement, saying that she did not recommend everyone to have rigid boundaries. After all, the attributes of many positions were like that, and hard boundaries would bring greater anxiety. The method she gave is more practical: first do "emotion labeling", and when you encounter something bad, recite three sentences silently in your heart: "This is a work task, not a personal denial of me." ； This is the other person's emotion, not the problem caused by me ； This is a small thing at the moment, not the whole of my life." The essence is cognitive dissociation in psychology. If you first separate the emotion from the event itself, the internal friction can be reduced by at least half.

We also took an anonymous job burnout self-assessment at the site. Xiao Zhou from the sales department, who was sitting next to me, was diagnosed with severe burnout. He said that he had not met the standard for the past two months. He lay in bed until three or four o'clock every day and couldn't sleep. He also went to the hospital to prescribed anti-anxiety medicine. He had also tried the method of "turning off the phone after work" before, but it didn't work at all. Would he dare not reply to a client asking for contract details at night? Later, I tried to use the emotion labeling method. The customer said, "What did you do with this plan?" His first reaction before was, "I'm done, the customer is going to run away, and I'm going to be fired." Now, he told himself, "He's not satisfied with the plan, not with me as a person." Then he calmly asked what needs to be changed. On the contrary, 80% of the performance for this month has been completed. He laughed when he said it, saying that he had known about this method, and he had lost so much hair before.

Later in the interactive session, a man from the technical department who was almost fifty years old stood up and said, What method you young people are doing is too complicated. My way to relieve stress is to take a detour from get off work and go to the vegetable market for 20 minutes, buy two handfuls of dewy green vegetables, cut some braised vegetables, and cook a bowl of noodles at home. It is more effective than any psychological consultation. The two teachers did not deny it, saying that there is no standard answer. As long as you feel relaxed after doing it, and it does not hurt yourself or affect others, that is the method that is most suitable for you. There is no need to force yourself to do any meditation or exercise. If you feel that it is most comfortable to lie on the sofa and watch funny short videos for half an hour, then watching short videos is the best way to adjust.

I've been trying it myself these days, and it sounds interesting. I use a mix of the two methods. Yesterday, I was criticized by colleagues from the development team for more than ten minutes during the requirements review. Before, I would have been depressed all night. When I got home, I would have repeatedly thought about whether I did something wrong. This time, I followed the EAP teacher's method and took out my emotions first. I found that what he said was indeed reasonable. I missed it. After getting off work, I followed the professor's instructions and turned off the work software, went to buy a cup of iced milk tea, and started binge-watching TV series when I got home. I didn't think about work at all, and fell asleep at 10:30 for the first time.

In the past, I always felt that regulating mental health was also a workplace KPI. To be qualified, one must be "emotionally stable and not affected by work." After this training, I felt relieved. Originally, everyone went to work to earn living expenses. It is normal to get emotional when encountering bad things. There is no need to label yourself as having "poor ability to withstand stress", and you don't need to copy other people's adjustment methods. You can do whatever you feel comfortable with. The road to career is long, so walk slowly and don't stress yourself too much. It's better than anything else.