Remarkable CEO Response to Employee Request for Mental Health Day

Have you ever felt the need to take time off for a mental health difficulty but feared the response from your boss so you just called in sick?  Usually, when we ask for a sick day, it is due to a physical illness, such as a cold or severe allergy.  While mental health issues are often just as serious we are hesitant to ask for the day off because there are usually no sick days for emotional problems.  Even when there are, frequently we still won’t call in and ask to take the day for something mentally health related.

However, the communication of one employee and her boss recently went viral for calling attention to this problem.  The woman Madelyn Parker, age 26, is a software developer in Ann Arbor Michigan, working for Olark, a live-chat platform that helps businesses communicate with customers. It is a relatively small firm with about 40 employees.

Parker had been experiencing several nights of insomnia and was having suicidal thoughts. She suffers from chronic depression and anxiety, which had built up to a point she didn't feel she'd be effective in her position without some time off for herself. She decided to take two sick days, and explained the reasons for doing so to her team. In an email she said she was taking the time to "focus on my mental health."  

She was somewhat apprehensive about how the CEO of the company would react and whether it might hurt her reputation in the future with the company. However, she felt a responsibility to let the other employees know that there should be no shame in taking a mental health day when needed to feel better and be better able to do their job. She wasn't sure the CEO would see it that way however.

The CEO of the company sent a response which was not what she expected to receive and which brought Parker to tears. In it, he thanked her for being honest about the reason behind her need for time off.  He further stated that her email reminded him of the importance of mental health time, and helped decrease the stigma associated with mental health needs. He stated that he would be work to make mental health time an accepted part of the self care model and encourage others to take this time when needed.

The tweet of a screenshot of the emails, have been “liked” over 50,000 times and retweeted more than 25,000 times.  There was an immediate surge of replies. Many disclosed stories of the negative response they received when attempting to legitimately take mental health days. Some people stated that requests to take a mental health day were refused despite having mental health days included in their benefits.  

The employee summed up the reason she felt it was important to be open about the reason she was taking two days off.

"I'm specific to be an example so my team knows that they can feel comfortable taking sick leave for mental health, even if they don't say it."

It is people like these, who have the courage to admit to vulnerabilities and the need to take care of themselves when these difficulties present who change the way companies respond to such situations.  By treating this type of concern as important but able to be handled with time off, employees and managers both can help decrease the negative attitudes and automatic judgmental assumptions that often occur when someone discloses that they need time off to handle an emotional difficulty. 

We need to make it  safe for employees and managers as well to feel they can trust the reaction of their supervisors when they are feeling emotionally vulnerable and in need of time off.  This can only occur in an atmosphere of acceptance, allowing those who are having transient mental health difficulties that can be handled in a short period to feel confident in the response they will receive such that they are comfortable asking for the time off.

Your Stress is Hurting My Brain

It has been known for some time that stress and emotions can be contagious, especially when they occur in people we are particularly close to and care about.  When someone is stressed out, those around them can feel the stress and come to experience it themselves. Similarly with emotions. When we are constantly around people experiencing negative emotions we begin to feel the same way.  One of the most researched area looking at these types of associations has shown that living with someone who is depressed or anxious can lead us to become depressed or anxious. The effects of stress has been shown to not just be emotional in nature.  Stress has been shown to permanently alter our brains in terms of brain chemistry, structure and function.

Now, a new study suggest that we should be more concerned about second hand
stress.  The study, conducted by a team at the Cumming School of Medicine's
Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI), at the University of Calgary suggests that stress in
one person can alter the brain of another person the same way that real stress does.  
Using a mouse model, the study also indicated that the effects of stress on the brain
were reversed in female mice after a social interaction. However, this was not the case
for the male mice.

Using pairs of mice, one mouse from the pair was exposed to a stressor then returned
to its partner who had not been exposed.  They responses of CRH neurons which
control the brain’s reaction to stress were then examined in both mice. It was found
that the brains of both mice were affected in exactly the same way.

This study was found to be particularly important because brain changes associated
with stress are thought to underlie  many mental disorders including PTSD, depression
and anxiety disorders. It is not known at this time whether stress experienced through
contagion has lasting or permanent effects on the brain.  

Jaideep Bains, the lead researcher for the study said,  "We readily communicate our stress to others, sometimes without even knowing it. There is even evidence that some symptoms of stress can persist in family and loved ones of individuals who suffer from PTSD. On the flip side, the ability to sense another's emotional state is a key part of creating and building social bonds."

This study demonstrates that stress and social interactions are closely connected. The
outcomes of these relationships can be long-lasting.  They may alter our emotions,
physiology, neurology and behaviors over a lengthy period or the effects may resurface
at a later time. The degree to which the changes may be irreversible is unclear and the
question needs further study. 

Resources

Toni-Lee Sterley, Dinara Baimoukhametova, Tamás Füzesi, Agnieszka A. Zurek,
Nuria Daviu, Neilen P. Rasiah, David Rosenegger, Jaideep S. Bains (2018). Social
transmission and buffering of synaptic changes after stress. Nature Neuroscience.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-017-0044-6

Study Shows That Holding Hand Can Decrease Pain

An odd phenomenon has been long observed in clocks. When you have five clocks
in different rooms of the house they won't ever indicate the same time. Hang two of
them next to each other however, and they will start to keep time in perfect unison.
Science can't explain this phenomenon but now it has been observed in people as well.

A new study suggests that holding hands with someone we love leads not only to
a sense of connection but that it can cause our breathing, brain waves and heart rates
to sync and can even decrease physical pain.  Couples who had been together for at
least a year were put in different situations involving being in the room together or not
in the same room and touching or not touching.  

Woman were exposed to mild heat related pain. When both were in the same room,
regardless of whether or not they were touching, synchronicity of brain waves occurred,
especially for wavelengths associated with sustained attention. The study is the most recent 
in a growing body of research examining what has been termed "interpersonal synchronization." 
Basically, this means that people physically mirror each other.  It is the first to look at brain 
wave synchronization in the context of pain, and offers new insight into the role it may play in healing touch.

Even without touch, being in each other's presence gave some relief from 
the pain and both individuals showed some brain wave synchronicity.  When 
they held hands these effects increased significantly.  When the man was in 
another room and unable to hold her hand when she was in pain the brain 
wave synchronization decreased.  Other studies have found similar effects 
of synchronization with heart rate and respiration.  The researchers concluded 
that pain interrupts the interpersonal synchronization that couples normally 
experience and touch re-establishes it. 

The synchronization was strongest when when the pair was holding hands and the
woman was in pain.  It was concluded that touch is an important part of easing pain,
just being together isn’t enough.  It was further concluded that pain interrupts the
interpersonal synchronization that is experienced normally by couples and that touch
re-establishes it.  

Results also showed that when the woman’s male partner felt empathetic toward
her, brain wave synchronization increased and pain decreased even more.  It was
hypothesized that when we sense that someone else feels our pain it helps us to
better manage it.  

This study expands upon the first one published from this research which showed
that touch led to a similar decrease in pain and an increase in synchronization in
heart rate and breathing rate between partners.  The two studies showed that the intensity
of pain averaged a 34% reduction for individuals  when holding hands.   It’s important to
note, however, that this research did not explore the effect in homosexual couples or
non-romantic partners.

The head researcher came up with the experiment after, noticing during the delivery of his daughter that his wife's pain lessened when he held her hand.  He decided to test this in the lab to determine if touch can really lessen pain and, if so, how.

It isn't clear yet how this relationship works.  Some ideas have been suggested, however.  When someone is empathic about their partner's pain, and communicates that through touch it can make the other person feel understood.  This has been shown in other studies to turn on pain killing reward mechanisms in the brain.  It also has a positive effect on mood, decreasing anxiety and fear and increasing relaxation.  These positive emotions have been associated with endorphins in the body which also have a pain dampening effect.

References

Goldstein, P., Weissman-Fogel, I., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. (2017). The role of touch
in regulating inter-partner physiological coupling during empathy for pain. Scientific
Reports, 7(1), 3252.

Peled-Avron, L., Goldstein, P., Yellinek, S., Weissman-Fogel, I., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. (2017). Empathy during consoling touch is modulated by mu-rhythm: An EEG study. Neuropsychologia.