Introduction to Mental Health at Work
We've developed this resource with expert information from Penumbra, a leading Scottish mental health charity.
It aims to support you in seeking help for mental health difficulties, and explains what you and your employer can do at work.
What is mental health?
We all have mental health, just as we all have physical health.
Our mental health can span from positive wellbeing, to periods where our life and emotions feel very challenging, through to significant poor wellbeing.
We all want to live happy lives with few worries and feeling calm and upbeat most of the time. But life is full of challenges and difficulties with mental health are common. They also affect many people at different stages of life.
For some, these are brief episodes, while others can have difficulties with their mental health for prolonged periods.
Mental health difficulties can be caused by a wide variety of things such as:
- difficult past events in our life, especially traumatic events
- difficult things in the present such as money worries, relationship or housing problems
- for some people, the way their brain, mind and body work, sometimes for genetic reasons
We are grateful to mental health charity Penumbra for providing advice and information on mental health for this resource. If you need support, you should contact your GP or professional mental-health support organisation.