Since the pandemic first began, anxiety and stress levels have skyrocketed across the nation. It’s been a struggle for many people who have had to deal with job losses, social dislocation, and the deaths of loved ones. Worse yet, it’s exacerbated another insidious problem we’ve already been dealing with for years: drug overdose deaths from the opioid epidemic. In 2020, more than 93,000 people died from a drug overdose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. It’s by far the deadliest year on record for drug overdoses and comes at a time when many people have lost access to support groups due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For businesses concerned for their employees, taking steps to ensure their staff can receive the help and support they need should be a top priority as we enter the new year. Here, we look at the link between mental health, chronic pain, and opiate use and how businesses can help by integrating mindfulness in the workplace.
A Slippery Slope: The Causal Link Between Mental Health, Chronic Pain, and Opioid Abuse
The causal link between poor mental health and opioid abuse is one that’s well understood. People with mental health issues due to depression, trauma, stress, grief, and other factors are more likely to self-medicate with over-the-counter prescription drugs. Usually, this process is started post-surgery or after another event that causes chronic pain. As the drugs mask the pain, the patient doesn’t improve, which leads to downstream effects. When left unchecked, this can spiral into an addiction that only adds to the difficulties the person is already dealing with. One research article noted that 16% of Americans who have mental health disorders consume over half of all the opioids prescribed in the United States. The result has been a steady climb in overdose deaths with each year, raising the number to a new all-time high.
2020 saw the worst year yet, with overdose deaths increasing by almost 30% compared with the previous year. The COVID-19 pandemic has been cited as the main reason for this startling jump. Having to deal with sudden job losses and financial woes and being cut off from their usual support channels, many recovering addicts fell back into their addiction. Others who had never tried opioids before started using them to deal with the stresses they were under. Adding to this, COVID restrictions made in-person recovery groups no longer possible, and funding dried up for support programs, while attempts to hold online meetings met with dismal results.
For HR managers looking for ways to help those employees who may be suffering from mental health issues and opioid abuse, integrating mindfulness into the workplace could provide a working solution.
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is the ability to stay both focused and flexible in a way that reprograms your mind to think in a more healthy and less stressful way. In essence, it’s about learning to stay in the present moment, being aware of how your mind works, and knowing how to process and filter out negative thoughts and emotions. Meditation and breathing exercises are what most people think of when mindfulness is mentioned, but there are a host of other activities that can also bring results. Active listening, setting personal development goals, practicing gratitude, and many other activities are all a part of it, as well.
The positive effects that mindfulness exercises can have on mental health are well backed up by scientific studies. When practiced consistently, they can literally rewrite brain neurons associated with memory, learning, and emotional control, thus, reducing stress and increasing well-being for a healthier individual. This can go a long way toward helping those employees suffering from mental health issues, chronic pain, and opioid addiction.
The benefits of mindfulness also extend to the workplace. After all, who wouldn’t want a more motivated, productive, and happier workforce? As a group activity, mindfulness can be an especially powerful way to develop better teamwork and new employee integration.
How To Incorporate Mindfulness into the Workplace
If you’re looking for ways to start a mindfulness program at your business, then these are some simple steps you can take to get started right away. It may be helpful to hire a leadership development coach who can plan and direct these steps.
1. Get everyone on board right away.
Your mindfulness program will not work unless you can get as many people on board as possible. Hopefully, there are already a few employees who have voiced a desire to start one. If not, then send out some feelers to assess how they would feel about such a program. It’s important that people be given time to understand how mindfulness works and how they can practice it. Managers and supervisors should lead by example by taking part in these activities, as well.
Set aside a day or an hour when you can have a speaker introduce your employees to the concept of mindfulness and how it can benefit them both personally and professionally. It may be counterproductive to force people to attend, so instead, rely on positive word of mouth to bring other people in, and let the results speak for themselves. Have people attempt to try it themselves for as little as 5 minutes per day. Positive affirmations work, and this notion needs to be emphasized.
One suggestion is to encourage your team leaders in their respective meetings to do 1 group 5- to 10-minute session to start the meeting at least weekly. We here at WellBrain practice what we preach and do a mindfulness meditation every week, and then we start our weekly department meetings.
2. Set aside a space where staff can practice mindfulness exercises.
Any mindfulness exercises must be built into the office’s daily routine. To do this, you’ll need a space where staff can be alone and practice their exercises for about 10–15 minutes every day. It doesn’t have to be a dedicated space; an unused office or conference room will do just fine. Staff should be encouraged to attend group activities and practice on their own time, as well. We have also found that, with respect to COVID, this is easier to do at home, and you can have your workers do this either in the morning or at night before going to sleep.
3. Introduce 1-month challenges to create positive habits.
Once your employees are familiar with the basics of mindfulness, give them a monthly challenge to aim for. This could be a 15-minute silent meditation exercise each morning, keeping a gratitude journal that must be filled in each day, daily breathing exercises, and listening activities to foster better communication and group sharing. Encourage each staff member to try every challenge and stick with those that feel most helpful. Some staff may prefer meditation exercises, while others will get more out of daily listening and sharing activities.
4. Ensure your mindfulness program is coming from a good place.
Workplace mindfulness programs are sometimes criticized for being “Band-Aid” solutions meant only to cover up a toxic work environment and the stress of modern work life. This is a fair criticism. Companies that are only looking to get more productivity and value out of their staff will have poor results. Your mindfulness program must come from a genuine place of wanting to improve the mental well-being of your employees for their own sake, not the company. It shouldn’t be marketed as a foolproof solution to the stress and mental health issues your employees are dealing with. Instead, mindfulness should be more about giving them the tools to navigate the issues they might be facing.
Final Thoughts
Nowadays more than ever, it’s important that businesses show they care for their employees. The huge layoffs and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have led large parts of the workforce to reconsider our whole approach to office culture. The need for maximum productivity and efficiency is often pushed, which is to the detriment of employee mental health. Companies that develop a more positive work culture that makes employee mental health a top priority will attract more job applications and achieve better staff retention.
Sumeet Maniar is the CEO at WellBrain. Wellbrain helps patients and people to train their brain to positiveness and this has other impacts on a person’s internal being, which thus improves outcomes over time.