Do You Need A Mental Health Break? | Nicky Young
If you are seeing or sensing that people are behaving in a way that is unusual, have the courage to ask the question. Because you could literally save somebody’s life.”
DO YOU NEED A MENTAL HEALTH BREAK?
Throughout her 20-year career, Nicky Young has been at the forefront of groundbreaking communication programmes for some of the world’s best-known brands. As a business consultant and former Group Managing Director of MullenLowe Salt, she is a highly energetic and self-motivated leader. In spite of her many achievements, however, like many of today’s top performers Nicky found herself facing burnout in 2017.
Stress and burnout have reached near epidemic proportions in the workplace—and we can expect more to come in the new Covid economy. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide, and alongside anxiety disorders this illness costs the economy an estimated 1 trillion USD each year. Yet many leaders, and employees, suffer in silence. Either due to the on-going stigma associated with mental health. Or, quite often, because they are misdiagnosed when burnout manifests itself as another physical ailment.
Since her own experience with burnout, Nicky has been actively working to change how business—and leaders—support their workforce in the area of mental health. In the first of this two-part conversation, Nicky shares why she took a mental health break, as well as some of the tools used to manage burnout. We discuss how the stigma of mental illness persists and why leaders need to make mental health a business priority. She also explains some of the early warning signs to watch out for in yourself, your loved ones, or friends and colleagues.
Note: Neither the host or guest are trained medical professionals. If you are struggling with burnout or depression and need immediate help, please reach out to your doctor or local health service.
MORE ABOUT NICKY YOUNG
- Interview excerpt from In the Balance on BBC
- Nicky’s talk at a Minds at Work event
WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT…
- International Women’s Day
- Advocacy for mental health by the Royal Family of Britain
- Unilever programme of #unstereotyping and understanding unconscious bias
- Paul Polman, Unilever CEO
- Sally Maitlis, Professor of Organisational Behaviour & Leadership at Oxford University on how leaders experience anxiety and depression
- The impact of coronavirus on mental health
- Symptoms of clinical depression
- Invisibility of depression and mental illness
- Time to Change Ask Twice campaign in the UK
- Social media detox
- Depressive Illness: The Curse of the Strong by Tim Cantopher
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Aimée DuBrule, CultureRISE
Host and Producer
Jenn MacLeod, Jenneve Digital
Media Production
(Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)
