Do you work alone? Self-protection measures to take care of mental health
Anxiety and depression are the most common mental health problems, and the entrepreneur who teleworks has every chance of them. Measures to take care of your mental health.
Aren’t you okay? If the loneliness imposed by your workday as a freelancer or entrepreneur is becoming increasingly heavier, continue reading.
It doesn’t matter that you already know everything below; what is vital is that you take the time to remember that you are the most important tool in your professional project.
Today, right now, you need to stop for a few minutes to start making decisions that help you feel better. Continuing like this can endanger your activity and, more importantly, your mental health.
A problem that potentially affects the nearly 2.3 million self-employed workers who get up early every day. Of them, according to INE data, 79% do not have any employees, so, under the pressure of billing, many of them—we do not know how many—add loneliness to their endless work days, a situation that teleworking has encouraged.
We have observed the phenomenon for a long time, and, understanding that it has advantages from the point of view of individual freedom, we also identify risks that this isolation encourages occupational illness of a psychological nature.”
The Fremap Health Observatory, a mutual collaborator with Social Security number 61, has detected that 16% of the total sick leave among the group of mutual members susceptible to teleworking was due to mental and behavioral disorders (TMC). which has caused 1,845,730 days of leave. In this same area, for employed workers, these types of pathologies account for 20%,” explain sources from the workers’ mutual association.
A sample of the effects of psychosocial and mental health risks, which the EU defines as those that “arise from poor conception, organization, and management of work, as well as a poor social context of work, and can lead to psychological, physical, and negative social
More and more alone
“More and more people are suffering from stress and anxiety in a highly competitive environment, which many address from the loneliness and working in spaces that are reduced. It is a situation that, on many occasions, is hidden, but UPTA puts it on the table because it is totally perverse and degenerates into long-term illnesses.
Rosa González Muñoz, founder of Emoveris, an executive coaching firm and expert in mindfulness who has worked for companies such as IBM, Mercedes, or institutions such as the Andalusian Health Service, warns that “if normally we all live a lot in our thoughts anticipating consequences, in the case of the self-employed, loneliness increases this mental rumination. Not having anyone to share with or talk to to alleviate those worries makes them more absorbed in that negative mind reading.”
However, risk remains the elephant in the workplace mental health room—everyone sees it, but no one mentions it. The self-employed are a heterogeneous and ungregarious group, difficult to monitor, and elusive of sick leave, especially when talking about mental problems.
Although the autonomy factor is a positive modulator for psychosocial risks, excess autonomy without establishing limits can generate the opposite effect,” they warn.
Furthermore, in a particularly defenseless group such as the self-employed, their recommendation is to “establish our own rules and limits to prevent psychosocial factors from affecting our mental health. If you detect that you may have any difficulty, it is best to ask for help before it gets worse,” they say from the mutual insurance company.
Identify the problem.
We asked Isabel Aranda, doctor and member of the College of Psychology of Madrid, what warning signs warn that our mental health is suffering: “When it is difficult for you to get up in the morning, make food, you have tone or difficulties in sleep.
She explains that each one reacts in a different way, “some with anger, others with sadness, but always in an overwhelmed way. These can affect behavioral factors such as the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, or sugar, playing sports in an uncontrolled manner, extreme driving, or risky sexual behaviors.”
What should we do?
There is also no fixed recommendation when the storm comes.
What is always important is self-observation.
The problem is that when it already affects your life, before this happens, you have to seek help because these depressive and anxiety symptoms, if they do not receive treatment, can become chronic in depression.”
She insists, again and again, on the importance of seeking professional help if you feel like you can’t get out of bed: “The sooner it’s done, the sooner you’ll get out. And then you have to make an effort to get out. When we go to the doctor, they give us anxiolytics or antidepressants, but we must know that this treatment is not the solution; it reduces the symptoms, but it does not eliminate the problem. The only way to solve it is through mental change.”
Self-care is the best prevention.
“Mental self-care is a requirement for the self-employed person’s health. We must take care of our body and our mind, which are our main work tools,” continues Aranda. Psychosocial experts distinguish between primary and secondary prevention.
Primary prevention
It is associated with the working conditions themselves: “When we undertake, we have to be aware of the load and content of the work that we can assume, be generous with the time that we are going to assign to each task, and think about the resources we have.”
From Fremap, they continue to insist that good planning, management, and respect for the assigned times are essential to keeping stress at bay: “A realistic analysis of the task requirements will allow us to know what resources to dedicate and where to put the focus on each case.”
Set a schedule to go to work, another to rest, and another to socialize.
Work by priorities: “The self-employed are very sold on the priorities of others,” explains Aranda, “but when he is the one who prioritizes, he feels that he takes control of his work and his life.”
Optimize biorhythms: Most people are more productive in the early hours of the day, when the most difficult and concentrated tasks must be tackled.
Secondary prevention
It is what makes us stronger regarding the risks that we are going to encounter. Here the recommendation is “the acquisition of habits and, consequently, skills,” as they point out from mutuality:
Take care of your physical health.
• Physical activity and sport: It is one of the star tips for all the sources consulted; it is better if it is in company or playing team sports.
• Healthy diet: varied, including all basic foods and reinforcing fruits, vegetables, and greens. But healthy eating also includes dedicating sufficient quality time to one’s own intake. “No eating in front of the computer; no matter how long it takes, we must eat while being fully aware of what we are doing,” González encourages, turning that moment into a mindfulness practice.
• Rest is also essential. Here, the recommendation is eight hours of rest.
Improve your emotional skills.
• Look for quality sources of information. Currently, there is a large amount of bibliographic, journalistic, and podcast production that can provide psychological resources and enhance resilience and positive thinking. All of this contributes to keeping our mental health in shape.
• Meditate: With any technique that allows you to focus your attention and stop the flow of confusing thoughts that accompany stress,.
• Surround yourself with positive people—people who help identify the possibilities that always exist.
• Enjoy the road. “It is important that the self-employed not only think about the goal, about results, but also that they seek satisfaction in the path that brings them closer to that achievement,”
Take care of your social health.
• Technology: a great ally to break the isolation of the self-employed person who works at home or alone, sharing the screen during moments of rest in front of a coffee or meal.
• Work collaboratively: In addition to the professional benefits of going where one cannot be alone,
