Guide to Mental Health in the Workplace

If people in the workplace want to maintain mental health, they should never force themselves to have "zero emotions" and "positive energy all year round", but learn to control the emotional fluctuations caused by work within the safe range that "does not harm the body, does not interfere with decision-making, and does not affect life" - to put it bluntly, don't bring the anger you get at work to the dinner table, and don't accumulate it into knots.

Last week, I had dinner with a friend who is an EAP specialist in an Internet company. She just received two employee counseling cases: one is a young girl who graduated from 985 in the operation position. She missed the quarter target by 10% and was criticized by the leader in public. She didn’t say anything on the surface. However, for a week in a row, she was looking through the chat records of the work group at 3 o’clock in the morning to dig out details. On the weekend, she had hot pot with her boyfriend and picked up The hairy belly fell off the table, and I suddenly burst into tears. I didn’t know why I was crying. The other one was a back-end developer who had worked for 5 years. In order to be evaluated for excellence, he took the initiative to take on the needs of three projects. Last week, the physical examination revealed type 3 breast nodules. The doctor repeatedly told me not to be angry. She sat at the door of the clinic and sent a message to my friend and said, "I don’t know why I am angry. I just wake up every day and my chest is clogged."

Nowadays, there is quite a fierce debate on the Internet about emotional management in the workplace. There are two completely different approaches. One group supports the "insensitive power omnipotence theory", saying that as long as you have a thick skin, no pua, blame-shifting, or unfair treatment can hurt you. I have actually seen people use this trick to perfection. I used to work for Lao Zhou in the company's sales department. The client threw the plan he had worked on for three days on the table and scolded him as "it was written like garbage." His logic is very simple: "What he is scolding is that this plan does not meet his needs, not that I am not good enough." But if you ask the delicate and thoughtful operations girl just now to learn to be insensitive, it will only make her more anxious: "Why can't I just not care? Is my mental quality too poor?" Instead, she will fall into new internal friction.

The other school of thought is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is mainstream in the field of psychology. It believes that suppressing emotions will cause problems. You don't have to force yourself to "not care". Just allow the emotions to come out first, and then bring your attention back to what you really want to do. I have stepped into this pit before. The year before last, when I was working on a cross-department project, my co-worker blamed me. In front of more than a dozen participants, the blame was put entirely on me. I was so angry that my hands were shaking. I didn’t force myself to be professional and generous. I just asked for leave and ran downstairs to the stairwell and squatted there for ten minutes. Minutes later, I scolded the person who blamed me eight hundred times in my heart until I felt it was funny. Then I went back to write a review of the accident, and clearly listed the docking records and boundaries of responsibilities. Next time when we cooperate, I will just post the rules in the group @everyone, but similar problems have never happened again. You see, I'm not "not angry at all" either, but if my emotions don't affect my decision-making, it's not a problem.

Many people have an extreme understanding of the warning signs of mental health. They think that only breaking down and crying and not being able to go to work are problems. In fact, many small details have already sent you signals: For example, your favorite spicy hot pot used to be your favorite, but now your colleagues call you to order it and you are too lazy to move; for example, you watch short videos until the early hours of the morning. Two points, even though you are so sleepy that you can't open your eyes, you still don't want to sleep, because as soon as you close your eyes, you think of the meeting tomorrow and the plan you need to change; for example, you can't help but lose your temper with your parents or partner recently, and you regret it after you lose your temper. In fact, you are not angry with them at all, but you are just spreading the anger you saved at work on the safest person. When these situations arise, don't take it hard. Give yourself a half-day vacation, even if you don't do anything and just lie down at home.

I have saved a few small methods that are not so "professional" but very useful. If you think they are suitable, you can try them: I have insisted on the "getting off work ritual" for three years. The moment I leave the company door, I turn off the work WeChat notification. I put on the headphones and play the loudest rock music. It is equivalent to telling myself clearly: from now on, I am myself, not an employee of the company. Anyone who comes to me will wait until work; there is also an "emotional accounting method", which eliminates the need to write a long essay. , every time you get angry at work, just write a line in the memo: "I was criticized by Mr. Li today and I was angry for 12 minutes." If you write too much, you will find that if you look at 80% of the anger next month, you won't be able to remember what it was about. It’s a trivial thing that’s not worth it; oh yes, there’s another one that sounds very vulgar but is really useful. Take two hours a week to sweat, whether it’s running, playing badminton, or dancing Liu Genghong. Endorphins will come up, and it’s much more effective than talking to three friends for three hours.

As for the most controversial topic now, "Is quitting your job when you are unhappy the ultimate solution to emotional problems in the workplace?" I have seen people at Gap adjust their status in three months, and then look for jobs where the salary has doubled without working overtime. I have also seen people who resigned and stayed at home getting more and more anxious, and the job they found in the end was not as good as before. There is really no standard answer. Just make your own calculations: If this job has caused you insomnia every day and there are a lot of red arrows in the physical examination report, then no matter how much money you are given, it is not worth it, and your life is more important than anything else; if you only get angry occasionally, the salary is enough for you, and there are no principled conflicts with your colleagues, there is really no need to talk about "resigning" every day. There may be other troubles in changing jobs, and there is no perfect place in the workplace.

In fact, after all, you go to work to make money and live the life you want, not to satisfy your boss, have everyone recognize you, or to get over your illness. Don't regard the evaluation at work as your entire value as a person. If you think about this, most of the psychological problems in the workplace have been solved.