A Change is No Good Without a Rest: Seeking Balance Through Sleep.

It's been a few weeks since I wrote, I know. I've started two or three posts but haven't been able to follow through and finish one, largely because I've had to prioritise work over everything else because I've been on business in India. More on that in the (finished) future posts.

The fact is, that I had to address serious 'balance' challenges in my life to keep going.

I was supporting the launch of a completely new process, including creating a suite of documents to be used, sessions explaining the process to Indian colleagues so they could deliver it, and making improvements to the materials as they were tried and tested in different ways so that the whole process could be run successfully

And it did run successfully. I should probably add, though, that creating new ways of doing things in big companies is not a small thing.

It's hard for me to explain adequately what my work comprises, because 'management consultant' is a meaningless title unless (and even, sometimes, when) the company you work for has decided to change something and they've asked in consultants to help them with it, whatever it is.

I admit that it's hard to explain what I do, but the easiest way to explain it is that it's about helping people (sometimes a few people, sometimes hundreds of thousands) go through a change that is being made by the organisation that they work for.

For example, imagine if in your company the head of technology decided it was time to upgrade to a newer version of a system. The old one is out of date and has lots of glitches and bugs. It doesn't really allow the business to keep up with the world of 2015. The people you work with, including you, have used it for the last twenty years. You don't particularly want to change because your job is pretty straightforward the way that it is.

Here's where I come in. It's my job to work with others - hopefully a team made up of people from your work and colleagues from mine to help make the change happen. Together we figure out how we need to make everyone understand why the change is happening (in whatever way works best - information sessions, emails, webinars, videos and so on). We also take a look at training requirements and figure out what training is needed to make the new system understandable and a success.

Gradually you move the employees - the people going through this change - through the 'change curve' from not even being aware that something is happening, to the point where everyone has been through the training, has started to use the new system and eventually it's as if nothing ever changed.

Helping people change inspires me with hope that the world can be positive and worthwhile. I hope I use the skills I've learned as a teacher and in business when I speak up about mental health, when I write about it, in my campaign, so that people do change their negative attitudes to mental health. Also, I should note, I hate change. I'm terrible at going through changes myself, and this makes me a sympathetic and empathetic ally when it comes to supporting changes. I 'feel your pain'.

What comes alongside this, though, is that even the decision makers from the business have to reconfigure themselves to accept and adapt to the change. So change affects everyone. Everyone has to understand what the change (whatever it is) really means so that everyone can play their part and explain why it is needed help others 'get it' as well.

Anyway, the upshot of all the above is that I spent the last month trying to make a change happen starting on the inside of a part of my business and then using all the documents in the process in anger.

We did it, working all together in our different roles. However, a success like this comes at a cost: work life balance; anything like it.. I got up at 5 most days to get in two-three hours of work before taking a taxi to the office from the hotel, where after another nine or so hours I'd come home and keep working for at least another couple of hours before or after dinner (or during) and then crashing down for a sleep. I chose it. I wanted to do this. But if Mrs. Robinson taught me anything during Economics GCSE lessons, it was that everything you choose has an 'opportunity cost'. You have to give up something else for every choice you make. I had to give up something.

I don't advocate working like this. I decided to do it because it was a challenge I wanted to see through, and I don't see why I shouldn't accept challenges like these if I want to even if I have depression. However, I have to focus on keeping me healthy outside of work, and nothing else. It's a little bit like training for an athletic event. You put everything into your physical exertion, and you have to make sure that you are eating and sleeping appropriately to be successful.

Work - Eat - Sleep. That's it.

The French say it best

This is the only way that I could operate to have a chance of carrying on. No mental health advocacy, no preparing for the launch of my campaign next week, no blogging, not much reading, no TV or film-watching. Just a few hours out for dinner with my colleagues once in a while.

I couldn't and wouldn't compromise on sleep. At the weekends or any other day when my work schedule permitted, I slept early and long, going to bed at seven or eight and waking at seven. Without nightmares (which are a different challenge) sleep totally rejuvenates me. Decent sleep matters so much. It's sleep I notice going wrong when I'm ill - and I do have to take medication to sleep, because my depression interrupts my sleep (and so do my anti-depressants, ha).

So sleep,

Macbeth knew a thing or two about insomnia.

And murder, but that's another story.

Sleep made it possible for me to get through the time away and its intensity.

It was worth focusing on sleep to see the process through.  I made it through the 15 hour days and at the weekends without flagging too much (although I admit that I had to down a few diet cokes on Friday and Saturday last week to keep going...and now I'm handling some 'interesting' caffeine withdrawal symptoms).

I drank all but one of these. Ouch!

I'm now back and back to normal. Normal working hours again, a nightly long sleep and back to blogging, reading, watching and finally speaking up about mental health. I'm still wearing a little makeup to cover up the tiredness.

I may possibly look like a poor impression of Joan Cusack in Working Girl...in drag...but other than that, I'm fine.

Or maybe, if I'm being honest, I look a little bit more like this...

Yeah. This is definitely me right now. 

Tomorrow is my friend Lucy's funeral so I'll continue to reflect on loss and what life means. What is worth living for. I have one answer: mental health advocacy, so that people have a chance at gaining confidence to be themselves, getting help, finding respect for themselves and requiring it of others. Next week is a big week for me and mental health. Thursday is the launch event for my campaign Redefining Resilience,

I'm also launching the Twelve days of Christmas: a video diary per day which you can look at on the campaign Facebook page if you so wish.

 I find Christmas wonderful and difficult in equal measure, so the video diaries will document the different ways I'm feeling and what I'm doing (or trying to do) to take care during that time.

Music helps, friends help...love and kindness help. Whatever you're doing, I hope you are finding balance somewhere, and I hope that you and your loved ones are taking care. Till soon. x

Making a Song and Dance of it...for Mental Health

I haven't written much here about singing - something I used to do all the time in choirs, as a soloist, in musicals etc., perhaps as I sing so rarely (in public) these days, and only at people's weddings if they ask me. Singing has, though, always been a major part of my life, ever since I can remember (and actually even before that). I made myself extremely popular aged three when I participated enthusiastically with the singing of hymns in our local Catholic church by replacing the words and music to the hymns with the words and music to "Daisy Daisy", a much better and uplifting song in my three year old's opinion. (Clearly!)

"On a bicycle made for two" 

(FloridaMemory.com)

Having begun my singing career in front of audiences. Not appreciative audiences, mind, but audiences all the same, I found a joy in singing that I cannot say I have ever found in anything else.

"My heart wants to sing every song it hears."

I couldn't have said it better myself, Jules.

Aged five, I had memorised all the words (yes, I really do mean *all* the words) to The Sound of Music (among other things like "I Know Him So Well" and "Karma Chameleon". I enjoyed demonstrating my impressive memory for lyrics to Mrs Edley in the playground at break time, where the poor, poor woman had to listen to endless renditions of "The Hills are Alive" at 10am by a five year old. Another reason we need to respect teachers: their endless patience. I also joined my fellow TSOM enthusiasts organising short performances of "So Long, Farewell" during breaks, preceded by lengthy discussions on choreography and styling. Precocious, nous?

I'm about to burst into song here, can you tell?

Now then, there is a reason for telling you all these things about my brilliant childhood singing career, and that is that last week I was involved in two events where signing, and dare I say it, dancing even - were suddenly back in my life, front and centre stage.

On Friday night as I sat writing my post for the weekend a tweet popped up from Mind mentioning open auditions for a musical, to be put on (i.e. rehearsed and then performed) within forty-eight hours. Not only that, but auditions were to be held the following day!

Err YES. Yes, yes and YES!

At this point in the evening I knew that I had consciously committed myself to writing slides for a proposal at some point during the weekend, and my exhaustion levels were increasing, but still, I knew that I both had to have and wanted to have a break from work in order to be able to function and in order to decrease my anxiety levels. And, quite frankly, because I needed to have some fun - a work *life* balance. I decided that in support of Mind and to encourage myself to do something new and fun I would go and audition to show my support for this wonderful initiative which raises funds for a chosen charity with each 48 hour challenge.

Read Ian's blog for Mind about putting on shows and

managing his anxiety through his creativity

Saturday morning I went to bootcamp (which I've not done this week as I've been travelling) and after many, many squats, burpees and a whole host of exercises that made me wonder what mad decision had led me to commit to a Saturday class, in the rain, outside, where I was putting myself through a hell of endless press ups and sprints. Saturday afternoon (a glutton for 'punishment') I went to Paddington Academy to meet Ian and a whole host of extremely enthusiastic casting team, choreographers and more performers auditioning for this year's chosen show - Thoroughly Modern Millie - to be performed next year.

People who really can dance. Incredible.

Just for absolute clarity, since I have no video evidence to share with you (thank goodness) of my absolute inability to dance, I would like to make it clear that I can, in no way, dance. I can do the YMCA dance, the time warp, and I can do aerobics. And that's it. The wonderful women and men observing the dancers and teaching us the steps were kind and supportive in spite of this, and one of them has amazing photographic skills - she made it look like I can dance. Miraculous.

See? Doesn't this make it look like I can dance?

I really, really can't. At all.

I came away from the audition absolutely exhausted physically with the effort of performing and re-performing the jazz steps that I saw my fellow auditioners perform with an ease and snap I definitely did not exhibit, but it was just so, so much fun. The exertion and joy had eradicated my anxiety and I felt absolutely wonderful. I hope I remember more often the instant curative nature of dancing with others or alone, for the pure love of music and movement. Any exercise - running, walking, swimming and more helps my anxiety, but adding music is even more effective.

Me acting. I can actually act. Thank goodness

there's something I can do!

And there's more! On Sunday through Tuesday this week I was fortunate enough to attend the Power Shift Forum at the Said Business School in Oxford. More on that in a future post, but at the networking drinks in the Ashmoleum Museum on Sunday evening I was again so so lucky to be surrounded by music and kindness. The super cool and hugely talented In The Pink came to sing at the event, In The Pink are an all-female acapella group in Oxford comprising students both from Oxford and Oxford Brookes universities. And they are INCREDIBLE. Thirteen young women with a shared passion for music, just singing their hearts out in a way that made me laugh, grin, cry and just love everything about them.

The mighty and magical In The Pink

A few of them were kind enough to come and meet me the next day and over drinks me made plans for do a couple of events together next year...so watch this space.

I don't know if singing or music is a passion of yours, but even if not, I have rediscovered how enriching and what a natural medicine doing something you love can be. I'm resolving to do more singing, bad piano playing, and even horrific dancing. I am smiling as I write this, and given that smiles are rare, I'll go in search of them in whatever way helps me to be here, smiling, writing this, living. Take care x

Managing Mental Illness: The Business Case for Supportive Line Management

I'm pretty exhausted this week, honestly, because I did a number of evening engagements either related to work and mental health or work and the digital learning and change role that I have as my 'day job'. By Wednesday I had worked about 30 hours, travelled to multiple locations and talked a lot about mental health. And if you read my post last week on burnout, you'll probably be aware that too much of that busy-ness is not good for me (or any of us actually) in any respect - mental health, physical health, whatever.

Nike Self-tying laces (in honour of Back to the Future, of course!)
If Nike could also produce self-showering, self-dressing,
self-makeup, etc. I think they'd really be onto something...

If I am going to continue to be okay, then I have to recognise that whether I feel tired or not on weeks like that, to avoid a mega crash into depression or a buzzing anxiety that I can't shake.

And in case you've forgotten or didn't know, here are the stats:
I and everyone need to take care of our health, and
we need respect and support, not inequality and discrimination

So this is going to be (read: is intended to be, and then laugh at me 1000 words later) a short post, and I'm grateful to Isabella Goldie whom I heard present at DIDLAW's Mental Health Disabilities and Stress At Work conference on Wednesday, for providing me with all the fire for my #redefiningresilience engine. I came away from that conference buzzing in every particle by the inspiring people standing up and saying "we need to do more" to support colleagues, managers, peers, team members to live in a mentally healthy work environment and be able to seek help

without feeling ashamed or repulsed by themselves, or feeling shamed or unsupported by their employer for doing so.

When I was sick last year I had several experiences with line managers - some very, very good, and some not so good at all. At a critical point with my mental health where I absolutely knew that I could not carry on living with such symptoms of depression pervading my existence, I am fortunate enough to have had the following resources to help me reach for help rather than (perhaps fatal) harm. But without supportive line managers I might not be here writing this.

The key message of this post is: we need line managers (US readers, line manager = supervisor, i.e. the person directly in charge of you and what you do at work)  to make it their business to educate themselves about mental health; and if they are approached by someone to talk about mental health, then they don't need to demonstrate a working knowledge of Jeffrey Young's 'schemas' or practise CBT, but they do need to be empathetic, provide safe boundaries for people to share their mental health experiences and then continue to be treated with the same respect as before, while incorporating appropriate reasonable adjustments to continue with work.

I am a line manager with several team members working with me or for me, depending on how you look at it, on lots of different projects. I recognise that I am a small fish in a very big corporate pond. I've been managing teams or individuals for over five years now, and I admit I was highly ineffective in certain respects during my early experiences, and hope that I have now made sufficient improvements that can be seen by the people whom I manage as supporting, respecting and empowering them to succeed in whatever they are doing.

You and I and everyone we know has a responsibility to

 create supportive 'moments' which make our lives easier, healthier and allow us to thrive.

With a view to keeping this post short (for my health) here are some things that I've found helpful as an employee, and following that a few things I think are needed from line managers.

If line managers aren't supportive, I know from personal experience, employees like me don't recover well, may not recover, may leave the organisation, and may even consider / attempt suicide out of desperation. Please remember that - this is about life or death in some cases. You as a line manager have a chance to make the biggest difference of all to someone's working life.

Here are some anonymous real quotations from people about the negative impact of unsupportive or unhelpful behaviour from line managers at work:

Something similar to this happened to me. It made me feel:

• that the stress was all my fault and was 
• a point of performance feedback (even when I knew it shouldn't be)
• ashamed of having failed at work
• disgusted with myself
• a complete waste of time
• ready to die

I would find it hard to stay in a job where I wasn't supported to be me, depression and all, but many people do that and keep pushing even though they are feeling horrific. Which makes them more ill. It saddens me and angers me that people are not listened to and supported when a few small things could make a huge difference - and is both the right thing to do and the right "business" decision: the average cost of losing an employee through attrition (related to anything) is £38K. If we can stop people feeling unsupported and make people healthier and happier, everybody wins.

One of the commonest things I hear from people sharing their stories with me is the constant contact from work asking when they are coming back. Of course this question needs to be asked and contact - supportive, not harassing contact - is helpful. But does that question need to be asked that day/ every day? More tips on what to do below, but really, just consider how you'd feel if the day after breaking your leg, your line manager called you to see when you could come back to work (and you work in an active job, let's say). Appropriate? Absolutely not. Did you know that you can identify a family member to be your point of contact while you're out and recovering? You can, and totally stepping away from work when you're really ill might be the best medicine you can take.

There are many resources available to help you as a line manager to feel more comfortable that you understand the issues of mental illness to some extent, and that you also understand the role that you have to play as a line manager in engaging with mental health at work (either on an individual basis or in general) in such a way that you make it easier to talk about, reduce health problems associated with the strain of hiding such a condition or "presenteeism" and support those with more serious conditions with respect. By according them with dignity and helping them work as much as they can, they can feel safe in the knowledge that you are on their side just as much as on the side of the organisation you both work for.

1. Remember that 'employees' are people above all else. Listen to them. Respect them.

We are all going to have events in our lives that make work tough. I'm not just talking about mental health, I'm talking about life events such as having a baby, meeting a new partner, breaking up with a partner, losing someone, being ill physically, and so on... When you show that you are listening, rather than judging, or behaving as if having a conversation with your team is not valuable to you, you will build trust with your employees and in every way (including health, of course) you will make for a more flourishing team, who trusts you and feels so much more comfortable belonging at work.

2. Show and tell: make sure your employees know - from you - that you value them


Working long hours, with tight deadlines can cause us all to feel the pressure and at times we might not have a great day (or a great week etc.) because of this. Showing empathy to your employees and highlighting again and again that you value them and continue to value them provides a hugely supportive working environment. When I was teaching 11-16 year-olds, I was a strict disciplinarian, but having established those rules in my classroom my students felt 'safe' because they absolutely knew the status quo. From that structure of safe and firm boundaries they were able to be creative, try new things, be rowdy (sometimes, yes, I can still hear the ringing in my ears) and be their 'whole selves' in a way that helped them to learn and grow at school. We can do this as employers / line managers / colleagues and show people we are glad they're there, and we want them to stay.

3. Take some responsibility for your employees' wellbeing.

This might sound like a no-brainer, but the word 'resilience' which I'm campaigning to redefine is so, so often used as a term that it is expected that employees will demonstrate, relieving organisations of all responsibility. This is not acceptable. Every employee is responsible for taking care of him / herself. But every organisation is also responsible for providing support. Line managers are (literally) at the front of the line in terms of managerial hierarchies, and so must, must commit to providing a supportive work environment. As I said above, line managers don't need to be experts in mental health, but do, for example, have a responsibility to understand the organisation's sickness and absence policy, return to work policy and have some idea of the key contacts (like HR) who can sign off on supportive reasonable adjustments to make an employee's working life so much better whether they're in work, returning to work, or off sick. 

Also, manage your projects or your team's time effectively: in my opinion there's no excuse for poor project planning which mismanages everyone's expectations and can make people very sick. It also sets very poor expectations for clients- they think they can get x done for y price, but actually if they paid for all the hours really worked it might be double that... And so next time, trying to have a properly planned project, if you tell them the real cost, they won't want to pay. And as for your employees: if they're anything like me, (or how I used to be)  they'll work all hours to get it done for you at the expense of their life and their health. 

Returning to Work

4. Be Flexible and Make Reasonable Adjustments

I think this slide speaks for itself:

5. Ask for help - because you also deserve support!

No one expects you as a line manager to be able to do this all yourself either. Like I said above, this isn't about making the employee 100% responsible for his or her work life, but it isn't all your responsibility either, and you need to make sure you're okay too, as a line manager, as an employee. As a person.

There are many resources out there to help you which DIDLAW Education can help you to find, and the Mental Health Foundation, where I got these slides from, and from Mind, Mausdley Learning, Connecting with People, and so on. Your employer should also have some training available, or support you to attend training to learn more about this. You are not alone in this, and you can make a massive difference.

So as you go into Monday, please bear in mind the above, and remember that you and everyone matters - so please be kind, and be kind to yourself too, as always.

x

R-E-S-P-E-C-T Let's Talk About Mental Health - Comfortably

I cannot believe it has only been five days since I wrote my manic Monday post. I am feeling distinctly odd after three consecutive nights of very little sleep at all, trouble even with getting to sleep, as well as my old favourite - trouble staying asleep - which is my biggest problem.

I expect attending the judging panel for @womenoffuture (Women of the Future awards) this morning did not induce additional drowsiness! I was so excited to have the opportunity to talk about mental health and the need to end the stigma around this widely experienced and more widely misunderstood category of illnesses. I also felt tremendously grateful to be in a position to speak about it: mental health for me is one of our most critical health issues in this country and globally.

It continues to become more and more apparent that mental illness does not discriminate. Speaking today to the judges I remarked upon this. There is not one group of people I can think of - whether we think about gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, lifestyle, or life, in fact - where mental illness is not present. We may have 1 in 4 people with a mental illness in the UK, but that means that so very many more people are affected by their connections to those 1 in 4. Let's think of the mothers and fathers, the wives and husbands, the children, friends, work colleagues, medical professionals and strangers who are interacting every day with those 1 in 4. We are living in a world of tremendous pressure and challenge. I would be very surprised if many people at all were completely free of connection to someone with a mental illness (themselves or others).

The paradox is that while mental illness is everywhere, silence about it is also everywhere more often than not. We still do not talk about mental health comfortably. I try to, with my known background in this area serving as an "easy chair" to slide into for this discussion, but others who are speaking of their illnesses or struggles for the first time cannot gauge the reaction of others as there are so few precedents; cannot guarantee that when they take that huge step, that leap, risking so much, while so ill, to be honest about a part of them that is unwell and needs support, that they will get that support. They might not even receive acknowledgement, let alone respect and help.

The judges asked me what I would do if I won - what I thought needed to happen - to improve things. For me, it isn't about providing support mechanisms in the work place or better NHS care (although both of these things are absolutely critical and the latter is in dire need of help, with so many people excluded from care as they do not qualify for treatment based on basic statistics. For example, did you know that if you had an eating disorder and presented with a BMI of 17.1 (i.e. .9 points below the lowest 'healthy' weight for a height of about 5'5") that you would be turned away from A&E (the ER) and asked to return when your BMI had dropped further. You would not be deemed sick enough to receive care. "Please lose more weight." = "Please get sicker, and then maybe we can help you.") 

This is what I said needed to happen, and what my focus for the next three years will be: "We need to make it normal for people to talk about their mental health." 

Why did I say this? 

Imagine if you had a very unpleasant spot on your face. You can use concealer to hide it, sure, but at the end of the day, you're very aware of a throbbing, red, sore, mass on your face that you know you'd far rather would disappear, and you're pretty sure everyone has noticed. But if you tell people about it, you're more likely to get empathy and shared stories (and recommendations of nuclear strength Clearasil), as well as perhaps the odd puerile cry of "That's gross" than have people fall silent, look down, say "Oh," and nothing more. Say nothing. Walk away.

Imagine if you could walk into the office, and on the second (or third) round of 'How are you?'s (because we know that the first is a saying hello, and the second might be a reflex action from the first) that you could say, "I'm feeling quite anxious today, so I didn't sleep that well" or "I'm feeling quite unwell mentally. I think I need to take it a bit easy today to try to prevent things getting worse." The latter statement makes perfect sense to me: you're not feeling well, and you've got to work / go to school / attend your child's school play / go and run errands. Therefore you see how you can reduce your 'to-do' list for the day so that hopefully those sniffles or early symptoms don't turn into flu (or, worse, man flu. Hor.ror.). And so your sick feeling isn't exacerbated by excessive travel. 

Why is it, then, that we so rarely hear people say anything about their mental health? Why is 'presenteeism' (which is where people show up to work with a mental illness (or any other kind of illness) but pretend that they're fine when really they are not and probably shouldn't be at work) so prevalent in our world? Why do you so rarely hear people say that they are off sick "because of depression", rather than because of a cold, flu (man flu!), food poisoning, tonsilitis, etc? 

I think the answer is, because hardly anyone says that. Still.

People don't say "I'm feeling depressed today" / "I'm feeling manic today and can't concentrate" / "I need to sleep today because my anxiety kept me up all night". People don't say it, so people aren't used to hearing it spoken of. And so people assume they can't say it themselves. They assume it's not an acceptable statement to make, and not a "good enough" reason to be absent from work.

We do - desperately- need to help people get the support that they need, but if they can't talk about it in the first place the likely outcome is that they won't seek help. They won't feel it's important/ a valid illness. And before that, they will not feel they can even mention it. 

We know that men struggle more than women to even voice struggles with stress, anxiety, depression and so on. And not talking about this can be - literally - deadly. The number one cause of death among men aged 20-34 is suicide. And this could so often have been prevented by better comfort levels for saying: "I feel very anxious." "I need help." "I am not okay." 

Gender / other factors aside, the bottom line is that people really feel they cannot talk about their struggles with mental health (even with stress). They feel ashamed, weak, less than. Like they mean nothing. 

This is so wrong. We all matter and we all deserve respect, courtesy, kindness and care - for ourselves and others. If we could change this situation and make talking about our mental health as easy as discussing a nasty spot or, say, a broken arm, shingles, or flu, this would mean that our serious and debilitating illnesses would not be worsened by the massive shame we would associate with having them. I personally have berated myself, hated myself, shamed myself and been disgusted with myself for being ill with depression. Why? Why is my illness so shameful? 

It isn't.

If I had not been so ashamed I firmly believe I would never have become so ill. I know that because being honest with my team is the same as making me feel instantly lighter. I haven't had to pretend I'm fine when I'm not, which in the past twenty years at school, university, in my jobs to date, I have done, and which has made me feel more ill: not just sick, but sickened by myself, by my sickness.

So that is where I would start. With more conversations until mental health conversations are "normal". Until people feel they can say, "Today I'm depressed." "Today I'm anxious." "I need help please." "I need to take a day or two off." And I can't wait to get that conversation going again any chance I get, and definitely at the Women of the Future summit in October. In the meantime, let's talk about mental illness and mental health. We all have mental health. Let's make it easier to make time to talk about it. Please help by starting your own conversations.