Growing up, I’ve always heard the phrase “it’s lonely at the top.” Well, that could be true. Lonely not in terms of position, perhaps that as well, but besides that, the feeling of being the only one on this side of the court. I’m talking about mental health.
Recently, talks on mental health have taken the limelight, across all fields – sports, business, medicine etc. So does it make it more prevalent now than previously? Not at all, I think it was always prevalent, just that we acknowledge it right now in a greater magnitude. We hear many things about business heads committing suicide. We hear lots about anxiety episodes due to the COVID-19 situation…. and this feeling of ‘loneliness’ that we talk about comes when one isn’t able to accept that we, as human beings, are highly subject to emotions and there is nothing wrong with it. Mental health has been spoken about widely, but on the other hand, as individuals, as friends, family of others, I’m not sure if we put it to practice. Our society has the misconception of talking about “mental health” to be a huge STIGMA that shouldn’t be spoken about ever. In fact, having emotions, acknowledging them and talking about them has been considered WEAK – but that is never the truth. Mental health and physical health are very much related. The more you refrain from accepting emotions, the more this affects or rather shows up in your physical health. Let’s take a simple example, where most of us resort to “stress eating” when the external stress is too high. Sometimes it affects our sleep cycle, sometimes it gets into the usage of alcohol or drugs. And if none of this is seen in one’s behaviour then it directly affects the health as diseases. It’s important to show up for yourself and take care. It’s okay to not be okay. It isn’t a sign of weakness or vulnerability. In fact the ‘strongest’ of people do go through emotions as well. They accept things a lot more, and that makes them who they are. Stress, pressure, anxiety, nervousness, anger, sadness etc – are all very human. It makes you human. While we live in denial that it doesn’t exist or we don’t feel it, as many neuroscientists would call it, we NUMB it. We do other things in order to forget the emotion or not feel it in the first place. The more we notice that, the more we are aware of it and feel our emotions – the more we live. In fact, not just live, but live lighter and happier. We thrive. We thrive happily.
Performance is often construed as more important than well-being. But the piece we so often miss out on is the fact that both performance and well-being are interdependent. We often focus on performing rather than acknowledging well-being, be it in organisations or sports. We take our well-being for granted. Hence there is a kind of burnout or fatigue that happens when we focus solely on performance. Now, I have to discuss the importance of mental health from a performance perspective, with many individuals who work with athletes or business leaders first-hand. One of the most important aspects that came out was the nature of acceptance – it could be acceptance of self, could be acceptance of one’s emotions. Many would deny the presence of certain emotions. Emotions and the way you feel makes you vulnerable, but that vulnerability is the factor that makes one HUMAN and of course relatable. Whether a leader or an icon, it makes us identify them that way due to the factor of vulnerability and relatability.
Acceptance, Awareness, Alignment
Currently we label emotions such as sadness, anger, frustration, hurt etc as negative ones. We don’t give enough time to accept that and feel them, nor do we do anything about channelling those emotions – all we do is postpone emoting by bottling it up. Acceptance and giving oneself time is so important.The second most important thing that we observed was awareness. Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the usage of the word ‘mindfulness’. It simply means being aware. The power of Awareness is often underestimated – be it one’s body awareness, emotional awareness, or even awareness in terms of responses. Most of us don’t even know what we feel and why we feel a certain way. Awareness is the key to getting everything right. Cultivating the habit of being aware in all aspects makes us extremely efficient and aligned to where we want to be. Finally, the third important ingredient – Alignment. You may have the best wheels in your car, but if the four of them aren’t aligned the right way, your drive ain’t going to be efficient. Well, in the long run, your car will tire out. Same is the case with ourselves. Our thoughts, actions, emotions got to be aligned with where we want to be – be it in a football team that is trying to make the final shot or in an organisation trying to fix its culture. If you are one unit, like a football team or an organisation, and you want to move a particular direction, then that alignment is required.