7 Ways to Radically Take Self-Care When Your Mental Health is at Stake

In a recent study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization common guidance note, mental health guidelines have been defined for the working population in the form of an estimate 12 billion work days are lost each year to depression and anxiety, costing the global economy nearly $1 trillion (US). Yet many business leaders continue to practice old hat tricks from the Dark Ages. They believe that self-sacrifice, strong leadership and criticism build the organization and the company’s bottom line. And they believe that when the company asks its employees to work longer and harder, it gets value for money.

What is radical self-care?

When faced with these types of extreme work challenges, employees sometimes have to go to extremes and take drastic measures to protect their mental health in order to get people’s attention. Radical self-care involves going beyond just saying no and setting boundaries. This involves going against popular opinion or refusing to appease others, even when they call you selfish or weak.

At Roland Garros 2021, for example, Naomi Osaka suffered from anxiety and depression. After openly sharing her vulnerability with the powers that be, the tennis great refused to speak to the media. Grand Slam big names demanded she face the media or be disqualified. Refusing to comply and traumatize herself further, the tennis champion showed courage. She put her foot down in the face of scathing public criticism that she was spoiled, weak and selfish and walked away from a job she deeply loves instead of sacrificing her mental health. Public feedback has shown that mental health in the workplace continues to be a divisive issue that isn’t highlighted as much as a broken arm or sore throat.

When the spotlight is on famous people, we often perceive them as superhuman, immune to the struggles of everyday hard workers. But mental health issues are universal. Fame and fortune do not protect us from these challenges, and saying whether you are a judge or a janitor is a strength, not a weakness. We all have a responsibility to protect our mental health from exploitative work cultures. The treatment in Osaka has implications for all working conditions of employees everywhere, who face punitive demands without regard for human well-being.

Radical self-care means caring as much about how you treat yourself or allow yourself to be treated as the expectations of others and being willing to take drastic action – going to unpopular extremes if necessary – to take care of yourself and protect your mental and physical well-being at all costs. Radical self-care includes these key elements:

• Radically prioritizing your own well-being – the airplane analogy with the deployed oxygen mask – over the well-being of others
• Extreme Boundary Management and Work-Life Balance
• Radical selection of your friends and support network (energy creators versus energy suckers)
• Keen awareness of emotions and triggers and ability to nip strong reactions and escalations in the bud
• Prioritized commitment to proactive mental and physical health (mindfulness, exercise, breaks, leisure and eating habits)
• Uncompromising ability to let go of your worry about disappointing others
• Willingness to go against popular opinion
• Drastic ability to say no even when it is not easy and inconvenient for someone you care about
• Conscious awareness to choose your heart over your head when your mind says yes and your heart says no
• Self-acceptance that it is impossible to give one hundred percent to everything

Seven Ways to Practice Radical Self-Care

Post-pandemic and with the onset of the Great Resignation, American workers are no longer willing to turn off their office lights and cower behind a potted plant to protect themselves from toxic workplace demands that compromise their mental health . And they are no longer willing to pay the price of burnout as a “normal” side effect of hard work. Work should not exhaust us or make us sick. Here are seven healthy strategies to make your mental health a priority at work:

1. Make your mental well-being a top priority and take steps to protect it every day, even if your business doesn’t. Practice “me time” regularly, throwing people pleasers out the window if it conflicts with your mental health. What Osaka did was neither selfish nor narcissistic; it was radical self-care. She is the only person on the planet who knows what steps to take to protect and maintain her own emotional well-being.
2. Stay in control of your career. Speak up if you feel mistreated at work and don’t make work decisions that compromise your mental health. Stand up for your well-being, regardless of pressure from your employer, and don’t back down when your mental health is at stake.
3. Set healthy boundaries. Follow Naomi Osaka’s example: be willing to say no when companies make unreasonable demands that go against your mental health. Saying no more than saying yes is a characteristic of healthy and successful people.
4. Avoid feeling ashamed. You are not weak or selfish when you refuse to submit to unhealthy demands at work. You are a normal person responding to an abnormal situation. Some employees are born with pit bull determination, while others are more vulnerable to the slings and arrows of work pressures.
5. Maintain a close and strong support system. Call on family, friends and colleagues you can count on in times of trouble. Serena Williams and Michael Phelps came to Osaka’s defense and supported her decision to take care of herself.
6. Demonstrate a professional attitude. Tennis champion Naomi Osaka released a statement expressing hope that both sides can find solutions to the controversial ordeal in the future.
7. Consider quitting your job. No one can ask you to quit your job without knowing the intimate details of your work and personal life. It may be worth consulting with HR or a counselor to weigh the pros and cons of leaving a job that has no meaning or purpose, is toxic, or requires you to sacrifice your mental health and well-being .