The month of May is dedicated to mental health each year. While this is a wonderful reminder to pause and reflect on the importance of self-care, mental health should be a priority all year long. This series of articles brings attention to the issues that affect entrepreneurs every day—as well as solutions and resources to help put your wellbeing first.
Monisha Edwards was running her own successful branding agency when the unimaginable happened: her father was injured, and she became his caregiver. The stress of the new role brought out underlying anxiety and depression. Her creativity waned, and she had trouble getting out of bed.
Depression is one of the leading causes of disability , according to the WHO. The organization also reported that the global prevalence of depression and anxiety increased by 25% in the first year of the pandemic . Entrepreneurs like Monisha are not exempt – even if they normally thrive in the risky conditions of self-employment .
In fact, studies show that entrepreneurs often report higher levels of certain mental health symptoms compared to the general population . In this group, isolation, lack of resources, and the pressure to embrace hustle culture can become a huge burden.
Three experts working at the intersection of mental health and entrepreneurship spoke to us about the causes and impacts of mental health problems among founders – as well as their optimism for the future.
Chivon John is the Global
Wellness Lead at Shopify and runs her own business on the side. She bristles at the phrase, “If you do what you love, you’ll never have to work another day.”
In her experience, the opposite is often true. “The more passionate and committed you are, the more you have to be careful to avoid burnout , south africa email list because you won’t necessarily take the necessary protective measures,” she says.
In her work as a business coach and mental health advocate, Nora Rahimian has seen the same thing happen to her clients. She helps entrepreneurs reduce stress and burnout by showing them how to run their businesses creatively and reduce the pressure to adopt hustle culture. “Hustle culture can be a response to that stress,” she says, learn how content indexing works on google and how it influences the digital presence of companies “because if I can hustle all the time, I feel powerful.”
That was true for Stacey Moss. The founder of Moss Botanicals watched her home and business burn down in a California wildfire. “Right after the fire, I was in ‘go mode,'” she says. “The grief didn’t come until six months later.” In crisis situations, entrepreneurs react in a way that is familiar to them: They work harder.
While the pandemic has certainly highlighted some of these challenges, china phone numbers it has not been the only factor affecting mental health rates in certain groups. “There are so many intersectional layers,” Chivon says. These include “racialized people being more impacted by COVID, the political unrest, the rise in racist acts and hate crimes.”
Why Burnout Should Not Be Ignored
Sherry Walling , PhD, a clinical psychologist who works with entrepreneurs, warns that burnout is much more serious than it sounds. “Burnout is essentially a repetitive stress injury where we use the same neurological circuits over and over again,” she says. “It’s brain damage. We can see it visibly on an FMRI, in someone who has high burnout scores.”
For founders with growing teams, the impact can be unintentionally contagious. “If you see your boss online all the time and they don’t take vacation, it sends the message, ‘Oh, so shouldn’t I take a break, too?'” says Chivon. “Leaders set the tone.”
Burnout is essentially a repeated stress injury where we use the same neurological circuits over and over again. It’s brain damage.
Sherry Walling
But often, stigma forces those same leaders to hide their vulnerability or avoid getting help. “If you’re leading a company and people perceive you as someone who isn’t doing well, they’re going to be less likely to trust you and therefore less willing to follow your leadership style,” says Sherry. “If you’re not doing well, there’s this perceived vulnerability in the company.”
Since depression is considered one of the most common causes of disability, it is also a leading cause of absenteeism from work, so Sherry recommends that founders invest in the wellbeing of the team from the start.