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Most of the time, behavioral wellness conditions are the primary reasons for employees' unproductivity, absenteeism, burnout, etc at work.
Employees' behaviors reflect their individuality as well as professionalism. Therefore, examining and assessing if the office workload or environment is hampering an employee's mental, spiritual, and physical health is vital.
Facts Suggests:
Organizations must sustain and provide behavioral therapy solutions to resolve the issues in no time. According to a CDC report, mental health issues are among the most burdensome health concerns in the United States. Nearly 1 in 5 US adults aged 18 or older (18.3% or 44.7 million people) reported any mental illness in 2016. In addition, 71% of adults reported at least one symptom of stress, such as a headache or feeling overwhelmed or anxious.
Stress or pressure can result in employees disrespecting each other, and they might also create a hostile work environment for all. But, taking necessary actions to minimize such problems in the workplace can resolve half of the problems.
Therefore, evaluating, understanding, and maintaining employee health and wellness in the workplace is crucial for the 21st century diverse workspace.
Key Takeaways
- Behavioral health is the umbrella; mental health sits inside it. Edy uses behavior as the diagnostic surface: how someone handles grief, job loss, a difficult boss tells you what's happening in their psyche. Ignoring the behavior — which many cultures still teach — makes the anxiety and anger underneath grow worse, not smaller.
- COVID grief is the under-named driver of today's workplace behavior problems. Her framing: six degrees of separation means everyone was touched, even without losing a loved one. Companies that skip the grief acknowledgement and push for "back to pre-COVID normal" are trying to restart a workforce that has been fundamentally changed.
- The workforce doesn't need a bigger budget — it needs to be seen. Edy's three-part prescription: being seen, being listened to, and not being shamed for needing help. A "mental health day" that's just a box-check is worthless. The right response is "what's going on, and how else can we help?"
- "Burnout stations" — a five-minute reset space on the work floor. One of her Canadian programs installed physical spots where staff can step away, breathe, or decompress for five to ten minutes. It's a low-cost architecture change that normalises recovery during the day.
- Exercise, yoga, music, and writing physically rewire the traumatised brain. She insists on the neuroscience: these aren't comfort rituals — they change brain structure. Fifteen minutes of movement a few times a day, or a short coaching session with someone who understands the mind-body link, does more than another wellness webinar.
- HR's job just changed — behavioral health is on steroids now. She argues oversight roles have a new responsibility: understanding how mental health issues cascade into workforce behavior. The companies that embrace it become change agents, not just org charts. The ones that don't will bleed talent to the "great resignation" and not know why.
- Employees: don't wait for permission to help yourself. Free 10–15 minute routines online — breathing, yoga, movement — are available now. Writing about anxiety or talking to one person diminishes its grip. Hiding it grows it.
In Edy's Words
On defining behavioral health at work
Behavioral health is how we handle our sense of self through behavior. It's the response to difficult situations — grief, job loss, COVID, problems with kids or elderly parents or a boss. Will you respond in a way that creates balance? Or reactively, feeling out of control, feeling held hostage, feeling like you just want to quit and leave everything?
Mental health falls under the auspices of behavioral health. How you behave is a sure-fire way of assessing what's going on in your mental health. When we ignore mental health issues — which certain cultures tell us to do — the experience of anxiety and anger actually gets worse.
On workplace grief after COVID
The intensive amounts of grief and loss people incurred from COVID is why behavioral health is kind of on steroids now in the workforce. It might not be the loss of a loved one — though six degrees of separation means if someone close to me didn't succumb, I know someone who does. It's taken us away from dreams, from relationships, from moving up in the world.
A lot of corporate structures want to go back to work as normal, to pre-COVID times. That's not going to happen. Everyone's been changed. The winds have changed. The workforce is not the same mentally or emotionally — the mental health resources have got to improve.
On the corporate response that actually helps
The more companies can tap into the behavioral health issues in their workforce, the more they become change agents for mental health — they're talking about what we don't want to be talking about, acknowledging the grief.
If someone says "I need a mental health day," don't just check the box — ask what's going on and how else can you help. What does that support look like? Oftentimes what's happening outside work affects what's going on at work — a marriage breaking down, a parent or spouse lost in the last two and a half years.
On small, specific workplace interventions
One of the programs I've been heading in Canada: burnout stations throughout the work environment. Staff can step away for five minutes, do a breathing exercise, or just take a break — then come back to their desk rejuvenated.
Moving the body helps the traumatic brain. Leave half an hour or 15 minutes during the course of a day for a physical break — yoga, exercise, listening to music. There's science behind this: exercise and music can change the structure of the brain. We're trying to help the workforce change how they've been holding the traumatic experience.
On small programs, big differences
Small pieces you incorporate can make big differences in the lives of the people who work with you and for you. And to the workforce — don't wait for someone to help you. The internet has 10-minute exercise programs, breathing programs, yoga. Don't wait for somebody to say you need help — do this as practice. By hiding anxiety it gets bigger; by talking about it or even writing about it, you diminish its power.
About The Author
Edy Nathan is an author, public speaker, and a grief therapist.
And in her expertise, she interweaves her formal training as a psychotherapist with breathwork, guided imagery, ritual, and storytelling. Edy Nathan MA, LCSWR is an author, public speaker and licensed therapist.
In her expertise as a grief therapist she interweaves her formal training as a psychotherapist with breathwork, guided imagery, ritual and storytelling. Trauma, abuse, and grief cause the soul to become imbalanced: The goal of the work is to find emotional calibration or balance to defy the depth of darkness and the grip grief often has on the psyche. She believes that everyone experiences grief throughout their lives. Grief is not just about the death of a loved one, but the losses we experience in life.
An essential element in her practice she offer clients the chance to combine psychotherapy with a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the self. She is dedicated to helping people understand their grief, cope with the fear and struggle that holds them back, and learn to live fully.
Connect with her on LinkedIN.
Show Notes
(01:04) What is behavioral health, and can you simplify it?
(03:42) What is the difference between behavioral health and mental health?
(05:49) Why are Behavioral Health Care Services Needed?
(09:56) Can you refer to some common issues In Which Behavioral Health Care Services Can Help employees?
(11:47) Why do you think behavioral health problems among employees are rapidly rising?
(13:16) Suggest some behavioral health techniques
(15:43) Why do we need to implement behavioral health programs in corporate wellness programs?
(16:45) Do you want to suggest or share your valuable opinions regarding the matter?
