By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Some mental experts have raised alarm over an impending pandemic that may affect mental health of employees.
Marian Salzman, organizer of the webinar themed ‘’Measuring up what we thought we knew’’ noted that angst and anxiety could be impending diseases that will be on increase for employees as well as other members of the society.
Giving her report on Trends for 2022, she noted that organizational devices were studied to make up her findings.
Speaking on a sub-topic under the theme, ‘’Mental health and wellness’’, Salzman traced some crises the world has suffered of which the COVID-19 pandemic has recorded shift in people’s way of life.
She said, ‘’from the financial crisis of 2007and 2008 to the extreme weather events and now there is this global pandemic that’s seem to be moving away from us.’’
She alerted that the chaos in the world is almost resulting to a new pandemic.
‘’Today’s unprecedented level of chaos has contributed to another pandemic. A pandemic of angst and anxiety. This general feeling about its uncertainty made worse by the importance of doom and divisiveness.
‘’They are the main stays of multimedia diets. As more people wait, it is going to be more complex, more chaotic and we should recalibrate our expectations and accept that complexities is the norm and angst is the new normal. There’s no way to tame and we must instead seek ways to inject calm and clarity.’’
Salzman speaking on efforts to curtail the increase of number of mental cases, she noted that she wrote about ‘’the rise of waited blanket’’ which revealed the growth of things like floatation and sound therapy, producing virtual reality boosted meditation and continued surge in psycho tropic drugs.
She also informed that awareness campaigns of these diseases of despair has already started.
‘’Many help has really moved out into the open and with that, we may record a silver lining to all this chaos because we’ve moved past the point at which we can pretend as if this mental illness doesn’t exist or should at least not disgust into plaque company.’’
She added that stressing mental illness including anxiety and depression are affecting families, work places and communities.
Hinting on the possible solutions, Salzman said, ‘’As the world gets wiser to these so called diseases of despair, receiving more widespread adoption, programmes of tools of widespread technologies can attack these problems and foster good mental health.
‘’Smart companies understand the benefit of minding the minds of their employees. Many made multinationals are putting in place support systems such as resource groups that foster diversity in place of work places and create a closer sense of this feeling of community.’’
NatureNews reports that angst and anxiety have often been used interchangeably, and while they present similar characteristics in how they manifest, they stem from different sources. While both angst and anxiety relate to the unease of unforetold suffering, angst is usually associated with a deep philosophical dread of dissatisfaction.