Mental Health Awareness

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

While historically mental health was not a topic normally highlighted or publicized, with more than 20% of American adults (nearly 50 million Americans) currently experiencing mental illness, the topic is more relevant today than ever before.?Many suffer in silence because of the stigma associated with mental illness and mental health disorders. So many times it gets overlooked or misinterpreted as something else unless something really major happens. During the course of this month, we want our employees to take this opportunity for self-reflection and personal action to recognize self-care and encourage those who need help to seek it – it’s a sign of strength, not weakness.

Overall health and wellness is all-encompassing: mind, body and soul. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, act and work. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to other and how we make decisions. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. As we learn more through Human Performance and our HPI principles, we gain a greater understanding of how internal and external factors affect our performance, mood and even our safety.

Trying to tell the difference between what expected behaviors are and what might be the signs of a mental illness isn't always easy. There's no easy test that can let someone know if there is mental illness or if actions and thoughts might be typical behaviors of a person or the result of a physical illness.

Each illness has its own symptoms, but common signs of mental illness in adults and adolescents can include the following:

• Excessive worrying or fear
• Feeling excessively sad or low
• Confused thinking or problems concentrating and learning
• Extreme mood changes, including uncontrollable “highs” or feelings of euphoria
• Prolonged or strong feelings of irritability or anger
• Avoiding friends and social activities
• Difficulties understanding or relating to other people
• Changes in sleeping habits or feeling tired and low energy
• Changes in eating habits such as increased hunger or lack of appetite
• Changes in sex drive
• Difficulty perceiving reality (delusions or hallucinations, in which a person experiences and senses things that don't exist in objective reality)
• Inability to perceive changes in one’s own feelings, behavior or personality (“lack of insight”)
• Overuse of substances like alcohol or drugs
• Multiple physical ailments without obvious causes (such as headaches, stomach aches, vague and ongoing “aches and pains”)
• Suicidal thoughts
• Inability to carry out daily activities or handle daily problems and stress
• An intense fear of weight gain or concern with appearance
• Changes in work performance
• Excessive worry or anxiety, for instance fighting to avoid bed or school
• Hyperactive behavior
• Frequent nightmares

GIS HR Director, Corlise Colbert, discusses the importance of focusing on mental health within our workforce and what we at GIS can provide to support our employees:

"Over the past 2 years, workforces in every industry have been impacted in one way or another and have faced challenges due to the lingering effects of the pandemic, instability in most job markets and now inflation among other things," Colbert noted. "New fears and stressors have begun to surface which makes finding a work/life balance and utilizing traditional coping mechanisms nearly impossible. Most people have never fully gotten a chance to recover from all that has happened. Because of that, it is more important now than ever before that companies make a concerted effort to create awareness around mental illness. We have to do more than simply share a phone number to show our support but to actually normalize and facilitate discussions around this topic and provide access and resources to support our employees as they navigate through these challenges. "

At GIS, we provide access to counseling and treatment for our employees and their families without any financial obligation to them. We want to ensure they have no reason to not seek help if they are struggling with an episodic onset of mental illness or suffer from a history of mental health or other behavioral health issues. This is one of the many ways we demonstrate our commitment to “Putting People First.”

Knowing the possible warning signs can help let you know if you need to speak to a professional. If you think you may be experiencing a mental health episode or may be struggling with chronic signs of mental illness, seek assistance. GIS has the professional support and resources for our employees who may need to overcome any challenge they may be facing.?