Mental Health: The Real Challenge of Working Remotely

When we think about working from home, the first difficulties we consider are the technical ones; then the logistics, if we can organize our time and tasks, and how to deal with telework when we have roommates or family members at home. But usually, when we ask ourselves how and when teleworking can affect our mental health, it is because it already has done it. The first rule for self-conservation during isolation is to keep busy. Those with the possibility of working from home already have that covered, but, in the long term, will that be enough?

The psychological effects of working from home during a quarantine go beyond a higher probability of getting distracted and the need to change habits to get the work done. Among the consequences of working in an environment of isolation are a feeling of loneliness, stress, and anxiety. All of these are elements that can affect anyone’s productivity in the long run, not to mention our mental health. If you are at home and have already started experiencing some of these symptoms, here are some tips to mitigate them.

1. Establish clear limits between work-time and leisure-time

This is one of the essential tips to ensure a productive working day, even when not in a contingency situation. Remote work offers the opportunity to be more flexible with your schedule; in some cases, it gives you complete freedom to arrange them. This is both an advantage and a problem. According to the ONS, 42% of the professionals in the public sector in the United Kingdom have used flexible working schedules. In the United States, 57% of companies offer flexible hours. Despite these advantages, the majority are working more hours. This is because people tend to work longer when they are allowed flexibility in their schedule, as opposed to when they do not have that option.

The danger of not monitoring work hours increases when one has full autonomy over working hours and is working from home. Understanding working hours as a resource and not as a way to test our dedication to the job or a tool to distract ourselves from isolation is crucial to keep us focused and productive within business hours, as well as less stressed outside the workday.

2. Teamwork is not just “work”

Remote work by choice is not the same as doing it in the face of a health crisis contingency. Most articles that advise how to be more productive working from home agree on one thing: getting out of the house.

But during quarantine, we cannot do that without the risk of spreading the pandemic. One of the most cumbersome aspects of isolation is the impossibility of having face-to-face human contact, especially when the interactions of remote work become more concise and transactional. We can send each other emails or have online meetings, but there is no longer that coffee break or a lunch with the coworkers.

Making it personal is also part of the job if we make some time in the office to socialize and empathize with our colleagues when we are at the office, socialization is something we could also keep doing online at times when we take our pauses or breaks. A support system is crucial for staying healthy and focused, attributes needed to do a good job, no matter your field of work. Communication is the foundation, and thanks to digital technology, it can be done without the need to be in the same physical space.

“When we communicate with people face-to-face, it could help to make us more resilient to stress factors in the long run,” says Dr. Maria Cohut, in an article for Medical News Today. Cohut argues that appealing to our social nature is the best way to deal with the negative psychological aspects of stress that comes from work and aging. Many professionals working at home are going through the same experiences due to isolation. Personal and empathetic communication with them is just as important as work to maintain an adequate level of mental health, despite the enclosure.

3. Routine and self-care: The 101 for surviving isolation

Uncertainty in the face of a health crisis is one of the most complicated aspects for anyone to process at an emotional level. Self-isolation not only numbs us, but it becomes more challenging to find the positive reinforcements of social interactions, consequently making it easier to fall into anxiety and depression. The situation is aggravated when in a mandatory quarantine to stop a pandemic, even more so when it is not known when the confinement will end.

“Oftentimes, if you have a very well defined period of time in which you’re isolated, people do pretty well up until the halfway point,” explains Lawrence Palinkas, a researcher in psychosocial adaptation to extreme environments at the University of Southern California. “Then they experience a letdown. But when you’re in a situation like we are now, when you’re not certain how long you’ll be asked to maintain social distance, that produces anxiety as well,” adds the specialist, this brings us to the most elemental question: How do we deal with this anxiety?

Dr. Maurya Glaude, associate professor at Tulane University’s School of Social Work in New Orleans, USA, recommends focusing on situations that can be controlled, such as executing a plan created to accomplish work tasks and performing personal care tasks. This exercise will help us to focus on what is important and on what is within our possibilities: simple things such as setting an alarm clock, establishing goals, cooking at home, exercising, dedicating a specific time of the day to review goals with your work team, and time to help your children with their homework. These all form part of a system of actions we need to achieve the physical, mental, and emotional health to live and work well, even in times of crisis.

These measures together are as necessary as reviewing that we have the technical resources and the logistical structure to work remotely. Personal wellbeing is a resource as important as the others; it needs to be taken care of today, and also in the near future when (hopefully) there is no global health crisis.

Sofía García-Bullé

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0