TEP Talk: Managing Mental Health
There is a lot of stigma when it comes to talking about mental health. While it is completely normal to feel sad, isolated, anxious, and even have moments of joy during dark times, it’s difficult for many people to talk about mental wellness, perhaps because they are afraid of being perceived as weak or soft. To help shed light on this subject, and as Mental Health Awareness Month continues, we wanted to know what tools our community members at Technology Enterprise Park (TEP) use to manage their mental health. So, we set up at the TEP lobby with a Coffee Talk to open up this discussion among members over complimentary doughnuts and a cup of Joe.
As competitive and eager as our TEP members are when it comes to outdoor community activities, it comes as no surprise that exercise was the most popular answer, followed by listening to music. Prayer, reading religious scriptures, and meditation were also among the most common ways members help reduce their own feelings of stress and anxiety.
What Tools Do You Use to Manage Your Mental Health?
Whether we are aware of it or not, post-COVID pandemic stress is a real thing: The psychological strain from this global health crisis has brought upon emotional and mental health issues for people all over the world. This has led to an uptick of demand in the meditation and mindfulness app sector. According to Quartz, meditation app, Calm, brought in an estimated $99.4 million in revenue in the first 11 months of 2020. Headspace, another popular meditation app, generated an estimated $64.5 million on nearly 11 million installs.
Mindfulness and meditation apps aside, does it feel like you aren’t experiencing symptoms of serious mental illness, but you’re not truly experiencing mental well-being either? American psychologist Adam Grant has given this collectively-shared feeling of being in the gray a name.
“It wasn’t burnout — we still had energy,” Grant writes in this New York Times article. “It wasn’t depression — we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing.” Languishing, which he describes as “a sense of stagnation and emptiness,” feels like you’re just going about your days feeling constantly foggy. “And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021,” he proclaimed.
But he thinks that there is another side of that – and it’s “flourishing.” He describes this feeling as “having a strong sense of meaning, mastery, and mattering to others.” And that’s what a sense of belonging to a community can help with.
Though seemingly reluctant at first to share something so personal to them – be it prayer, going to church, or having a few drinks on the weekends while playing friendly games at the pool table – our community members came around, albeit briefly, to share with each other on ways they decompress during stressful times. Whether it’s working out, getting outside, meditation, or reading, it’s clear our members appear to have a wide range of tools in their mental health management toolkit.
DID YOU KNOW?
According to Nature.com, more than 42 percent of people surveyed by the U.S. Census Bureau reported symptoms of anxiety or depression in December 2020, an increase from 11 percent the previous year.
What tools do you use to manage your mental health? Let us know in the comments below.