When the immediate sense of crisis and urgency from the COVID-19 outbreak dies down, don’t be fooled into thinking the impacts won’t linger in its wake. We are continuing to learn about apparent ongoing physical complications associated with those who have had the virus, but relevant to all are the wide-reaching impacts on our fragile mental health.
Stress, burnout, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and substance abuse could be argued as the defining burdens of our generation. They were a silent and growing cost for businesses long before the epidemic with significant direct and indirect costs relating to absences, turnover, disengagement, low productivity, fatigue, injury, as well as driving excess medical costs. A recent Forbes article included U.S. cost estimates for employers in the hundreds of billions annually and as much as a trillion globally.
Remember, that was before we had the overlay of anxiety and stress of a global epidemic where people’s lives and livelihoods were threatened, and where our already delicate work-life balance was basically erased.
This is not something that just goes away. What it requires is a genuine acknowledgment and a proactive approach to helping people build (or rebuild) their mental and physical resilience. I believe resilience is a skill that can be learned. Some will always be more resilient than others, that’s a given, but I think we can all improve from our baseline as long as we understand it and nurture an optimal physical environment from which we can mentally thrive within.
If you are interested in more, please visit this page to request a free copy of our recent COVID-19 Mental Health Whitepaper.