Mental wellness revolution

Back in 2015, we executed an inventory on the Internet and found out that an easily accessible and fairly priced proactive mental wellness approach was unavailable. That led us to start working on the new and revolutionary mental wellness path that focused on preventing mental health issues.

The need for such an approach was and still is huge, as for multiple decades mental health approach mainly dealt with mental health problems that had already appeared by treating mental illnesses reactively.

The ones who win the most from a proactive approach are employers and employees, as they can stay well and fit. However, investing in systematic intrapersonal training, as a proven way of preventing mental health issues, will bring other benefits, like opening up creativity and boosting productivity.

We understood that if we don't start preventing mental health problems and illnesses, we will soon witness the collapse of mental health care systems. Little did we know a global pandemic would enter and turn mental health topics even more burning.

The mental health problems that COVID-19 brought along are multiple, from loneliness to severe levels of stress and anxiousness to various mental illnesses. It most likely requires years to recover if you don't discover proven paths to keep your mind/brain fit and well.

THE SOURCE OF THE MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

We have lacked, and still lack, mental wellness related education in our whole educational curricula from the first grade to the doctoral studies in universities. It means our inner domain and processes within our own minds are widely not understood. We often have mentally unhealthy lifestyles that 'make us' stressed, burned out, and mentally depleted.

The total lack of practical intrapersonal skills means that people don't notice the warning signs. Most of us don't understand where our downward spiral starts from and lack activities to sustain and/or train our mental wellness.

We hope blindly to stay well. However, by now, we should know that hoping blindly to keep our body well fails without proactive activities (like going to the gym, running, taking nature walks, eating healthy, etc.). Why do we nevertheless hope it would be different in the case of our minds and brains?
 

Make a cup of tea or coffee and find out how to solve this for you and your team.
 

FIT MIND IS A TRAINED MIND

If we genuinely want to secure mental wellness, we need to take further steps from talking about mental health problems. Talking is just the initial acknowledgment of the mental health problem, but we all should acknowledge how to focus on mental well-being. Maybe the following analogy will allow you insight mental wellness reviews.

Before Arnold Schwarzenegger gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film icon, he and the world also struggled to make fitness gym lessons something treasured and desired. As a successful outcome, we presently consider regular exercising of our bodies normal.

TRAINING YOUR MIND IS NORMAL

The mental wellness revolution we need is simple: We need to make training our minds normal. As Arnold stated in his autobiography "Total Recall", "Focusing on the body was no problem for me, and later on, I became really curious to develop my mind. I realized that the mind is a muscle and we should train it too."

We should understand that both physical fitness and mental fitness are the results of systematic training. As Arnold stated in his fascinating life story, "There are no shortcuts – everything is reps, reps, reps.” In the first case, we train our physical body, and in the second case, we train our mind/brain.

Just as our muscles are plastic and trainable, so is our brain. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is a general umbrella term and refers to our brain's ability to modify, change and adapt both its structures and functions throughout life and in response to our experiences. The brain isn't a fixed entity, and it changes according to our lifestyle, habits, and the skills that we have.

While we focus a lot on the skills related to our physical body and chosen profession, we seldom even think about how we lead our own inner processes. Many people are unaware that they can lead their thoughts and emotions at will and even let go of them at will. Again the total lack of intrapersonal education is here to blame (watch the video below).
 

Watch this insightful mental wellness video now, it proposes a sustainable mental wellness solution.

In schools, we typically tell kids to focus, but we don't teach them how to focus. We ask them to pay attention, but we don't teach how to lead your attention and intentionally keep it on the selected object as long as needed. However, we expect them to focus and pay attention. We even anticipate grown-ups to do the same.

In reality, we have many false beliefs like the efficiency of multitasking, dependency on emotional motivation and beliefs that external situations define our mental wellness, etc. No wonder we are unproductive and fall into traps that get us ill.

WORKING FROM HOME MAKES OUR PROBLEMS OBVIOUS

While we worked in our workplace environments, we felt that mental health problems were out there.

Now we know that working from home reveals that stress comes from within us, we also know that burnout can occur even in the serenity of our home. The different mental health issues can become obvious even when we live alone and lack the pressure that huge families experience when the whole family studies and works from home.

While it should be apparent that stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses develop gradually, throughout our lives, we nevertheless try to blame someone else and act surprised when we turn out ill as a result of such slow processes.

A genuine change will happen when we acknowledge our own responsibility and have intrapersonal skills that support our mental wellbeing.

This scientific paper by Dr. Lass started the global mental wellness revolution.
 

START SECURING YOUR MENTAL WELLNESS NOW

Real change demands proactivity before illness strikes us. It calls for us to focus on mental wellness.

However, it doesn't mean the work-related psychosocial risk factors don't matter. Instead, it means that besides all external psychological safety factors, our internal mindsets matter at least as much as the external factors. However, training our minds/brains has been heavily overlooked.

Failure to know how to deal with our inner processes results in stress and anxiousness. Stress causes pressure, chronic stress and burnout thus leading to toxic work and family relations. By feeling anxious our fears are magnified, and in the long run, experiencing anxiousness leads to anxiety.

When stress and anxiety accumulate, it also leads to different physical and mental health issues. Studying how to lead our own intrapersonal processes makes it possible to avoid personal trauma and prevent work-related productivity and engagement problems.

WHY DOES MENTAL WELLNESS MATTER NOW MORE THAN EVER?

As McKinsey published on their homepage last December 8, 2020, "Obtaining treatment for behavioral health issues remains much too difficult. A 2018 survey cosponsored by the National Council for Behavioral Health reported that 42% of respondents cited cost and poor insurance coverage as key barriers to accessing mental healthcare, with one in four people reporting having to choose between obtaining mental health treatment and paying for necessities. Because of cost, coverage, and the social stigma still associated with mental and substance use disorders, most people with behavioral health issues do not receive treatment. A study of more than 36,000 people found that this was true of 62% of people with mood disorders, 76% of people with anxiety disorders, and 81% of people with substance use disorders." That is quite alarming but was a pre-pandemic situation. 

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation stated in 2020 that 45% of Americans felt that the COVID-19 crisis was harming their mental health and 19% experienced that this crisis had a strong on their mental health situation.
 

Avoid the collision course – educate your whole team so that everyone can handle their challenges and stay well at the same time. 

CLOSER LOOK AT MENTAL HEALTH STATISTICS

The McKinsey homepage post about the mental health revolution states: "In a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, 73% of Americans reported feeling anxious at least a few days per week since the onset of the pandemic. Between mid-February and mid-March 2020, prescriptions for antianxiety medications increased 34%. During the week of March 15, when stay-at-home orders became pervasive, 78% of all antidepressant, antianxiety, and anti-insomnia prescriptions filled were new (versus refills).” 

Those quoted mental health statistics indicate how our mental wellness depends proportionally too much on our external factors, as we experience strong inner reactions towards what happens around us.

In our previous blogs, we have shown stress-related statistics and the benefits of proactive mental wellness. It absolutely narrates the identical story that mental well being in the workplace is essential and investments into it as easy to earn back.
 

Intrapersonal skills offer the potential to secure mental wellness for every employee, regardless if they work from the office or home.

Mental wellness isn't a specific niche. Instead, the proactive mental wellness approach is a comprehensive approach that is for everyone out there. It is the holistic approach that gives you a healthy mind.
 

DIGITAL MENTAL WELLNESS REVOLUTION

We didn't stop by changing how we look at mental health. We genuinely wanted this new mental wellness approach to be accessible for all with fair prices.

As we originate from Estonia, which is seen as the Silicon Valley of Europe that has given the world several unicorns (Skype, Wise, Bolt, Playtech, Pipedrive), making mental wellness digital in the format of a mental wellness gym was the obvious solution.

Our reality here in Estonia is that we enjoy the benefits of a fully digital life with e-elections, e-banking, e-parking, medical e-prescriptions, paper-free e-government and the ability to see what our state knows about us. This digital life has enabled us to maintain our individual freedoms even amid the lockdown periods.

We hope that making mental wellness digital will allow you and your team to enjoy freedom and work-related success, regardless of your location.

We sincerely hope the digital mental wellness revolution can bring a similar change like in the case of Skype which irrevocably changed how we interact on personal calls. After all, life and work without Skype (and its competitor Zoom which came later based on similar technology or its offspring Microsoft Teams) would be today unimaginable.

CONCLUSION

We hope and dream that someday a life without work-related mental illnesses isn't merely possible but instead a dominating global standard. That is why we passionately love to contribute to the digital mental health revolution by focusing on mental wellbeing activities.

What is in it for me? Yes, for you! 

We have made systematic mental wellness e-trainings affordable and turned them into a relaxing experience. It enables you to keep yourself and your team mentally fit and productive at the same time. And best of all you can do it at the best price! 

Give your brightest minds a decent chance to stay well! Ask for an exclusive offer for training your team now!