Improving mental health at work remains a number one priority of leaders.
Yet, it is believed people are distracted by the constant chaos and stress of devices, surroundings and other external factors. But the real problem isn’t the chaotic surroundings, it is our mindsets.
The solution to better mental health, resilience and higher performance isn’t found in more mental health training. Poor mental health is a human symptom of an operational problem.
The Natural Human Mental State?
Let’s look first at the natural mental health state of a human being, assuming no clinically diagnosed mental disorder. The human mind and body are naturally designed for equilibrium. When we know how to return to balance we naturally improve mental health, productivity and performance.
There’s been plenty of research on how humans are designed to thrive including:
- Polyvagal research (Stephen Porges, 1995–present) shows that our baseline nervous system state is social engagement, which is calm, connected, curious, and creative. This is the biological setting from which humans collaborate and thrive.
- Neuroscience of the Default Mode Network (Raichle, 2001) reveals that in rest, the brain is not idle but naturally reflective and integrative, which is a state that supports creativity, problem-solving, and meaning making.
- Flow science (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) demonstrates that when conditions are right, humans gravitate toward states of deep absorption, satisfaction, and peak performance.
In other words, humans are designed to thrive.
When workplace stress and mental health issues show up, they are not evidence of individual weakness. They are signals that the surrounding environment has disrupted the natural design, forcing physiology and people’s nervous systems into survival mode instead of performance mode.
Why the Current Mental Health Framing Fails
When organisations frame mental health as an individual responsibility (manage your stress, take a day off, download an app), they are missing the root cause.
Stress doesn’t arise because your people are weak, lazy, or broken. It arises because your operational systems are no longer efficient, effective or supportive of the business outcome.
When operational structures create constant pressure, for instance, unclear roles, poor communication, unrealistic targets, endless firefighting, the nervous system is pushed into chronic threat mode. This isn’t psychology. It’s physiology.
The Physiology of Pressure
When the body perceives threat it switches into fight, flight, freeze mode:
- Breath shortens. Oxygen drops. Focus narrows. Decision-making falters.
- Cortisol rises. The brain’s prefrontal cortex goes off line impacting your clarity, strategy and innovation.
- Energy leaks. Emotional regulation collapses, triggering conflict, reactivity and burnout.
The effort to fight against the body’s natural state is significant. This is when it is best to recalibrate the operating system of your business and simultaneously soothe the symptoms of people.
The Operational Reality
Stress, feelings of overwhelm or anxiety create an operational drag with symptoms including:
- Meetings draining people and no clear outcome of actions.
- Leaders constantly reacting instead of proactively commanding their mindset.
- Teams running hot on overdrive with unseen fear, frustration, and fatigue.
The result? Energy depletion, poor retention, lost clients, and wasted profit.
Stress isn’t something you manage, it’s something you dismantle.
The Business Case for Change
Business leaders are well aware of the cited cost of mental health problems at work. Deloitte puts it at £56 billion annually in the UK. That’s 2.2% of GDP leaking out of organisations through stress, burnout, and disengagement. Or approximately £2,000 per employee.
If you’re like me and are passionate about creating thriving people and organisations here’s how we can flip the narrative:
If 100 leaders dismantled stress at the operational and physiological root, the return on investment would exceed £20 million. That’s not theory. That’s hidden emission maths.
- Mental health is the signal.
- Systems are the cause.
- Physiology is the leverage point.
When you treat mental health as both physiological and operational, you stop firefighting symptoms and start eliminating the source.
This has been my underlying strategy for over 20 years of business change, consultancy and leadership mentoring. I never talking about mental health, but instead created solutions that improvement performance and naturally everyone’s mental health improved. All the companies I consulted for improved their profits with happier, healthier people.
Command Your Mindset. Command Your Business.
The bottom line is your nervous system is your inner business strategy.
- Calm breath = calm boardroom.
- Clear focus = clear decisions.
- Regulated leaders = resilient teams.
Mental clarity and improved performance always lands after stillness, which flows naturally into higher profit.
People are not broken.
When you recalibrate physiology and operations together, you unlock the profit, clarity, and creativity already built into human design.
Contact me to discover more.
Love. Gail