Some thoughts because today is World Mental Health Day 2024

EDIT: This was accidentally published as a newsletter, not as a Linkedin article. My apologies to all newsletter subscribers - this was not my intention but an oversight. 🙈

Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay 2024 and so I want to talk about my 11-year experience with #stress.

In the summer of 2013, I was Head of PR at a big company.

For a while the team had been buckling under the strain of too much work, too many deadlines and a number of other factors that were taking a toll on the staff.

We were in a team meeting. The next item on the agenda was the hiring of an extra pair of hands to take some of the pressure off the shoulders of the rest of us. The boss casually announced that he had decided this wasn't the right time to hire somebody. Then he moved on to the next item on the agenda.

And something weird happened.

I lost the ability to hear sound.

It was like I was in a bubble. Or under a glass cheese dome.

I could see my colleagues moving their lips and I could hear muffled conversation. But none of it made sense.

My heart started racing.

I started sweating.

I looked around the room.

Nobody seemed to notice that I wasn't engaging in the conversation. Nobody was looking at me. I felt invisible.

I sat there for what felt like several minutes.

I couldn't hear. And I couldn't speak.

All I could do was feel my heart pounding in my chest like it was going to explode.

I remember thinking: 'Am I having a panic attack?'

Shortly thereafter, a break was announced and at that time my sense of hearing started to come back to me. The team went for coffee and bathroom breaks.

I left my computer and notes in the conference room.

And before I knew it, I was standing in the HR department, asking a colleague for a word in private.

We went into another conference room and she shut the door. She took one look at my face and asked: 'Jesper, what's wrong?'

And then I burst into tears.

Feeling broken

Long story short, at the end of our conversation I was put on immediate sick leave.

I never returned to my job, as the company decided to abolish my entire job position before I could recover and have a conversation about returning.

But that is not the point.

It took me 4½ months of complete rest and 12 months of therapy to get back on my feet.

Initially, I was panicking.

I felt broken.

I felt like my entire career had ended and I would never get hired again.

I felt sure everybody would view me as 'that guy who couldn't handle the pressure, who has to be handled with kids gloves' - like I was somehow fragile and made of glass.

I know now that that is B.S.

When I 'confessed' to my peer group that I had been diagnosed with stress, it was an act of desperation. I felt like coming out of the closet, like I was revealing some terrible secret.

I was afraid they would reject me.

I was afraid they would gossip.

Instead, they embraced me.

I'll never forget how stunned I was when, for many of them, their initial reaction was: 'Oh, you too? Yeah, I've been there myself'.

Many of them had experienced exactly what I had just been through. But they had never spoken publicly or in the confidential space of the group about it.

Telling the group of peers that I had been diagnosed with stress was one of the most nerve-wrecking things I have ever done in my life.

But it shouldn't be.

An industry at severe risk

I've loved working in corporate communication and public relations for almost 20 years.

At the same time, I hate how our profession is ruining lives every single year.

• 91 percent of public relations professionals reported experiencing poor mental health last year. For the workforce in general, that number is 'only' 63 percent.
• Practitioners being diagnosed with mental health issues is on the rise.
• On a scale of 10, 30 percent of PR professionals rate the stress level of their job in the 8-10 range.
• And research indicates that as many as half of us in the industry have experienced stress, anxiety or burnout to some degree in the last few years.

Recognizing the symptoms

When I started putting the pieces together with my therapist 11 years ago, I learned that a lot of the warning signs had been there for a long time. I just wasn't paying attention.

I keept telling myself that this was just a phase, that things would soon get better, that I somehow just needed to work a little harder and then the rewards would follow.

If you are conscientious, if you take responsibility for the tasks assigned to your team, if you pick up what others put down or ignore, if you take pride in your work, if you want to do the best job possible - in every situation - you are severely at risk of getting stress.

I am not saying: 'Don't do a good job'.

But in my experience it is the people who feel responsible for the success of the entire team - or even the company - who never question whether it is fair or right that they get to carry much of the load.

Fight - or flight?

Fundamentally, stress was a practical thing - back when we were wearing pelts and had to decide whether to fight a sabretooth tiger or run away from it.

Instinct takes over - and hopefully you survive.

Today, you can get stressed by things that are not trying to kill you - but your mind feels like they are.

If you are inclined towards flight, you will probably experience nerveous bowel movements, stomach aches, racing thoughts, heart pounding in your chest, trouble breathing, sweating and acid reflux in your throat.

If you are inclined towards fight, the symptoms can get a lot more psychological than physical; you'll get angry, pick arguments with people, snap at colleagues and family, feel pushed or threatened at every turn.

And here are some other general sympthoms that you may not be aware of:

• Your body does not regeneate when you have toxic levels of stress hormones in your body. Your hair and nails don't grow like they used to. Your skin cells don't regenerate as well. You start to look old.
• Your body shuts down the part of your brain that registers happy emotions. What is the point of thinking about happiness, if you are in a fight for your life? It is the body's practical way of conserving energy. It is also a sure way to eventually develop depression.
• Your body cuts off access to fat deposits and turns up your consumption of sugar intakes to the max. You are constantly craving quick energy fixes. For 6 months prior to my collapse, my daily 'breakfast' was a Yankee chocolate bar and an energy drink. No, I am not kidding.

Seeking help and getting better

I am not a professional stress coach or therapist.

I cannot tell you exactly how to get better.

But this is what has worked in the past and is working for me:

• Calm soothing music - like yoga class style
• Walking - as much and as often as you can
• Building in buffers in your calendar - expect unexpected developments causing delays
• Asking a client if it is okay to deliver something a little later than initially agreed upon. You'll be surprised how often people give you a deadline at random.
• Talk with people about how you feel. Express your thoughts. Use a diary if you have no one to talk to. But I hope you do.
• Recognize and take comfort in knowing that stress is an epidemic. Chances are that most of your friends and colleagues have experienced it.
• And know that stress is a condition. It is not a disease. You don't develop it because you are weak but because you are fundamentally feeling threatened. It has no cure. And it will probably never go away. But it is in almost all cases manageable.

On this day, I wish you good mental health. 😊