We hope you learned a lot during Canadian Agriculture Safety Week! 🦺 For this last day, we wanted to check in on you. Are you taking care of yourself?
YOU are the most important piece of farm equipment on the farm. Without you, there is no farm, and it’s okay to not be okay!
Mental health is a relatively new topic of safety being discussed in our industry. Although mental health itself is not a new concept, dealing with its different aspects is coming into the mainstream and should be talked about with the people you care about.
Remember, how you’re feeling matters! Farm equipment gets the maintenance it needs to work at peak capacity, your mental health deserves the same attention. Without regular maintenance you could experience stress, burnout, or other mental illness.
In the Agriculture industry the top three stressors are unpredictability, heavy workloads, and financial pressure.
Here are some helpful tools to better manage your emotions:
-
- ✔ Recognize that intense emotions can be beneficial – aim to regulate, not repress.
- ➢ Learning to recognize your feelings, to listen to yourself and to others can significantly improve the harmony in your business.
- ✔ Take a pause by creating physical (a walk) or mental (a distraction) distance from the feeling temporarily.
- ➢ When emotions are running high, experts recommend taking a step back to analyze what’s happening in order to communicate effectively.
- ✔ Keep a daily mood journal to record your emotions, reactions, and outcomes.
- ✔ Talk to an expert or therapist for personalized advice.
- ✔ Recognize that intense emotions can be beneficial – aim to regulate, not repress.
Resources: https://talksuicide.ca/
