#MHAW
Highlighting Mental Health Awareness week
1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year.
Mental health is paramount every day, and Mental Health Awareness week aims to highlight topics and issues to raise visibility, awareness and to encourage open conversations.
This year, the official theme of MHAW has been ‘loneliness’, and encourages us all to build meaningful connections with our friends, family, colleagues and communities.
Our society is changing fast, and especially since the pandemic and the move to being ‘more digital’, there has been a growing rise in the sense of loneliness and isolation, which can often undermine our confidence in everyday routines. So whilst society and our workplaces are changing, there are ways that we can embrace this whilst building meaningful connections with those around us.
Addressing Mental Health in our workplace
In 2022 Ultimate made the decision to move ‘digital first’ following team feedback and many insight exercises into how our team felt most productive in their everyday working lives, meaning that many of our team work almost exclusively remotely, away from one of our offices.
With the move, we have never been more aware of the impact that this can have on our team’s mental health and wellbeing, and that’s why this week we have provided more time for our team to come together to socialise and connect, from virtual lunchtime breakout spaces through to promoting the availability of dedicated sessions each day hosted in our Manchester offices, from Elaine Bousfield Psychotherapist and founder of Kooth PLC & Zuntold to The Jamie Horrocks Trust.
Friday’s session was with Jamie Edwards, Manchester Giants owner and Mental Performance Coach, covering the importance of having honest conversations with yourself, to ensure that you stay in the moment and that we focus on mind skills consistently throughout every aspect of our life, not just professional. Jamie’s approach to performance mindset is very matter-of-fact, but it has helped high performance individuals to continue to achieve their goals.
Our team summed it up by saying “It was very insightful… small changes make a big impact. There is a skill in being able to put yourself in the present, focusing on your ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’.”
