A proactive mental wellness approach can reshape human capacity

"We strongly believe in the power of applied awareness to be uplifting for people's performance and wellbeing. Life orbits around wellness. We see it as a foundation, very similar to good education, not as a reward."

Wellness Orbit was born as the systematic approach to preventing mental health issues at work had been missing. 

As a medical doctor and licensed psychiatrist, Dr. Helena Lass observed that our fast-paced modern lifestyle that is filled with stress causes more and more people to suffer from burnout and mental illnesses – such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, etc. By now many scientific papers point out that stress, anxiousness, and employee burnout are the leading causes leading to the worsening of mental health at work.

Stress is currently reported as the biggest health problem in the workplace (Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control).

63% of employees report insufficient resources to manage workplace stress (Source: APA, 2015). As this trend is growing, the stress problem at work needs solving as it causes employee burnout and even more serious mental health issues.

We can't overlook stress and work-related mental health issues anymore as depression and anxiety cost now 1 trillion USD each year to the global economy (Source: World Health Organization) and leave millions of people unable to work efficiently. This has a significant impact on workplaces, where leaders (including executives, managers, and HR professionals) have thus far been without straightforward and efficient preventive measures to safeguard the mental well-being of their employees.

Prevention of work-related mental health issues

When investigating possibilities for the prevention of work-related mental issues, Dr. Lass found that the inner skills to direct our attention, our emotions and other mental events provide resilience to her patients. Even more so, she discovered that the same intrapersonal skills ('intra' meaning inside) provide proactive tools for all people in their day-to-day stressful situations. This enabled us to re-think how to approach mental fitness at work and as a result of it, Wellness Orbit was born as a fully digital B2B e-learning platform that builds a sustainable road map to mental wellness at work.

We are passionate about finding a solution to help people in re-inventing their human capacity. To achieve this Dr. Lass decided to combine her medical education with previous entrepreneurial experience and long-term awareness practices, this is the base from where the unique concept of intrapersonal skills development emerged.

We can train our brain as it has neuroplasticity

More and more scientific papers point out that our brains aren't fixed entities even when we are grown up, which means we can train how we use our brains regardless of our age. The phenomenon that allows us to learn and change our brain patterns is called neuroplasticity or brain plasticity.
 

Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change our neural networks through learning, changing existing habits, and personal inner growth. Such changes in our brains can range from individual neurons making new connections to systematic adjustments like cortical remapping. Examples of neuroplasticity include brain circuit and network changes that result from learning a new practical (intrapersonal) skill. Also, our environment (home, school, or workplaces) and our existing daily (work-related) habits and practices influence it.

Reading scientific papers and observing how mental health issues develop we can find that worry, stress and burnout don't change only our physical body and behavior but also changes our mindsets.

By adopting different thought patterns and emotions we rewire our brain. When our inner reactivity is activated more and more we experience stress and adapt our habits and lifestyles accordingly. That is why we will soon launch a new stress and burnout prevention e-training that offers a solution that all employers have been looking for.

The foundation of mental health problems

First, our stress usually brings minor changes like less sleep, fewer walks outside or less physical training, or more coffee. But when our stresses turn into chronic stress it slowly leads to major changes like adopting a less active or more active lifestyle (in case of eustress) or keeping ourselves more isolated from others or worrying more or losing our ability to sleep and eat well, etc. Several of those changes can take place at the same time, but as we are worried and under inner pressure, we fail to observe ourselves.

We frequently fail to notice such changes because the process of inner change occurs gradually, often requiring measurements over the span of months or years rather than mere days or weeks.

It is important to understand that work-related mental illness doesn't happen overnight. The initial starting point of our downward spiral is mostly stress or anxiousness or some dramatic event that we can't let go of. If we want to be resilient we need to start learning how to deal with different processes within our minds and we need to do that before our stress becomes chronic and we burn out or become ill.

Inner peace – affordable Nordic luxury

Wellness Orbit fills the missing link in mental wellness related education – it teaches practical awareness-based intrapersonal skills that everyone can easily apply. Almost all you learn here is what you can apply at work.

Here in Northern Europe, from where we originate, we still have a lot of pristine and silent nature which enables relaxation and aware inner reflections. Such a calm way of observing your inner domain or inner space (that we usually call the mind) is today an ultimate luxury that most people lack access to. That is why we set our aim to transfer the essence of it into an affordable digital learning format where inner observation and learning are turned into a relaxing and soothing experience for you and your team.

CONCLUSION

Learning how to deal with our own internal processes builds a path to workplace mental wellness, employee engagement, and sustainable employee productivity at the same time.
 

This news and blog post is by Kaur Lass