Mental health and Work

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer:

We're in the midst of the morning show here on Youth Jam and as it's a Thursday I am joined by Dr. Patrick Jones, founder of Perth Psychologists, who each week comes onto the show to discuss a different facet of our mental well-being. Patrick, how have you been keeping this last week? 

Patrick:

Yes, good, nice and wet out there but it's been fun. 

Interviewer:

Yes, absolutely. Now what I thought we'd look at is mental health and work. We've sort of been trying to make this a succession of topics each one that leads on to the other. Last week we looked at mental health and leisure so it feels like the flip side of that coin is looking at mental health and work for sure. 

Patrick:

Sometimes for a lot of people, they're completely separate topics but I think it would be great if we could see how they might be also the same. 

Interviewer:

Yes, that'd be useful and I suppose from what I know and that's a very minimal amount around psychology certain aspects of our state of mind contribute both to our ability to participate in leisure and also our ability to participate in work. So what aspects of our psychology contribute to our ability to work or to contribute to our ability to work well? 

Patrick:

Well does remind me of one of those quotes which is on their deathbed most people don't wish that they spent more time at the office and I think why would that be the case? And there is a nice, what they call, goodness of fit model that might answer that. And if your work is an expression of who you are, then it's not so much that work was. Oh, well, I wish I didn't have to spend so much time on that. And rather, I could spend time on the things I love. But the goodness of Fit model suggests that if we can get a connection between our interests, our abilities, what we're trained in, what we're sort of convicted by as being a really good thing to contribute to the world, and our natural flow or personality. 

And if we can link all those or match all those with a task that people then potentially remunerate us through money, then that's a perfect fit. So the goodness of fit model attempts to try and lead people towards actually having an experience of work that's self-expression versus something that they just have to do. I think that's a very important distinction. 

Interviewer:

But I suppose as well as that, when you say work instantly what comes to mind, is employment but there are certain things that you do for recreation like it could be a musical instrument or it could be a sport that also do require hard work to properly benefit them benefit from them I should say. What are the psychological benefits of devoting time and concentration to tasks that require an abundance of both? 

Patrick:

Well, I guess when we look at goal-setting theory, they split goals into short middle, long long-term goals. And I think if we're just focused on what we sort of want to do now in terms of like we could almost say short-term effects, then it's not a great sort of foundation to build bigger projects or things that will last during our life or the life of others. So I think it does require planning and concentration. And I think it was like the 70s there was a bit of a shift from sixty s and seventy s really as a reaction to just following your, you know, doing your duty, being a dutiful husband or wife. And then there was a shift to, you know, if it feels good, do it. 

And then, you know, because with every swing, usually, it's in the opposite direction. And the other extreme, both of which are a problem. And I think it's somewhere in between those two of not so much the duty, but what is useful and what I want. And sometimes it does require if it's something which I think is useful, but not a whole lot of fun. That's where I think it's critical to kind of have that combination of useful and enjoyable. And sometimes we might fluctuate between it's useful and not enjoyable. And that's when I think there's that. It is beneficial to devote time and concentration to something that I know is useful, but it's not super enjoyable at the moment. Yeah, I think that's the main thing. I did also have a thought, though. 

Some indigenous tribes haven't had a term for work, which originally staggered me when I first considered it. It was just that's just what they did. Whatever they were doing there wasn't divided into the recreation and the work. And I think ultimately, we want to be able to get to that place, to where what I'm doing is just what's true for me, whether I call it work or leisure or whatever. It's just this is what I do. Because this is a natural expression for me as a human being. 

Interviewer:

And there's something almost meditative about certain kinds of work, whether that's playing a musical instrument or even doing something that requires a lot of repetition. And I was going, to ask you in that way, you could decipher a mindfulness technique from devoting that time and concentration to a task I e. Like I say, a musical instrument or even building something that is leisurely but is ultimately something you need to concentrate on? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, actually, that's a good question. It does lead me to one of the mindfulness tips, which is all skills or attributes which is present moment awareness, which is sometimes people interpret mindfulness or being present as just being in the present tense. And it's not really about that. It's more about being aware of what is needed now and what might be needed later. And so I think it's more being in the moment, being mindful, present moment awareness is about just having that awareness that right now I could potentially put my mind to a future analysis about something, or I could do a past reflection on something, or I could analyze something specific that's going on right now. 

I think that the key is awareness and if we can be aware of whatever activity is, whether it's the music or the work I think being in the present and being aware is sort of the critical point rather than sort of being unconscious whilst I'm doing something else. 

Interviewer:

Today we've been discussing work and mental health and so I'll continue that discussion by asking Patrick, what are the pitfalls of not devoting enough time to tasks that require attention, and conversely, how do we know when our workload has become excessive? 

Patrick:

Yeah, okay, well to answer the last bit first, I think the clue it's a big one in all the research is the presence or not of flow. And if we're feeling there's some kind of friction, some kind of tiredness, then we may be partially out of flow we may be overworking and that's where we might need in the effort recovery model, we might need a bit more recovery time. But the clue I'd say is am I experiencing a sense of flow in what I'm doing? And the other bit, I guess, is if I'm not devoting enough time to something, is it because it's drawing me again when I often distinguish between the Vocation versus the job hire thing, I think where the job hires, where they hire your brain and your body and they pay a fee for it. 

Not sort of particularly satisfying versus the Vocation sense, which is the Vocare Latin to be called something inside of me is being called out and expressed in my work. So often when I'm not devoting time to things, it's possibly because I'm not feeling drawn by it and that's where I kind of need to reconnect is it true for me? And it might not be true for me from the point of view of particularly interesting, but it might be true for me from the point of view of it's useful, it's what I want to do, it's just that this isn't particularly satisfying at this point. So that's the clue. If there isn't much flow sort of perhaps just to rejig that and go why am I doing this? And sort of recommit to what's true for you or change the task altogether. 

Interviewer:

For a lot of people instances where the work that they're talking about isn't something that they have to do for leisure, it's something they do for their livelihood, it can comprise something that is like an aspect of their lifestyle that they're dependent on. And it often makes it quite intimidating, the idea of not only having to go to work but being dependent on work in of itself. Do you have any advice about negotiating our security in the face of needing to do work? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, I think everyone in principle understands this idea of not sort of selling out to get money ahead of satisfaction. But whether or not we always make those choices, I think is important to explore, because our work is something at one level that we may depend upon in terms of making our life financially viable. But all the predictors, again, in terms of money are that it's not a high predictor of well-being. I mean, it's what they call a state change predictor. So if we're low in money or high in money, we'll get a temporary state change. But, in terms of it being satisfying, we need to be able to probably answer that question, which they often ask in corporate training, which is, how do you get the passion of Saturday and Sunday into Monday to Friday? 

Interviewer:

And that's always the bit to remember. And again, in terms of motivation, the limbic system, the emotional brain, you could almost say if you don't have that motivator operating, you've just got sort of willpower and so on. The performance and the quality of the work are different. So whilst we do sort of need to negotiate some degree of security, it needs to be balanced with and I always come back to, is this a true expression of me? And if not, do I need to review that? But always aim to get to that place. 

And your answer to that kind of prefaces what we're going to be talking about next week, which is the role that money can play in our mental health. And so for that, we'll leave that for next week and pick up then. But in the meantime, Patrick, thanks for joining us again here on Youth Jam. 

Patrick:

Indeed. All right, take care.