What I learned about mental health

Recently, I was made aware that my company Swisscom is offering ensa "mental health first aid" courses. To be honest, this is really a topic where I knew next to nothing about. So I decided to learn something about this instead of technology, agile methodology or management.

I'm convinced that besides the ability of a team to perform - in our case building great products that our customers love and use every day - it is essential that we don't forget to look out for each other. We're not robots after all.

The course was split up in chapters focusing on different conditions, also touching topics like addiction, burn out, depression and so on. And it comes with a book where you can find a lot of additional information about the topics, as well as how to react in emergency situations.

The most important take away from the whole course is that if you notice that someone might have a problem, be open about it. It's very simple: Whatever you think the problem might be, talk about it. This also applies if it's you and not someone else. Talk about it and let others help you. A lot of people (as much as every second person) will suffer from a mental health issue at some point in their life!

It's ok not to be ok. But it's not ok to not let others help you!