Work Cover claims for Mental Health are skyrocketing. Over the past couple of years, the Victorian state Government has been forced to tip hundreds of millions of dollars into WorkSafe to prevent it from collapsing under the burden of so many claims.
It is not wise to act helpless, as it seems so many are.
The typical methodology in Australia when it comes to health challenges is to act when someone presents as being sick or unwell, and provide the relevant medical treatments and therapies to return them to health.
When do we begin looking at prevention as a strategy?
When I worked in the AFL as a High Performance Manager, a huge part of my role was the preparation of players to ensure they could endure the rigors of the contest and not become injured. Doctors were there if the player was injured, but it was my job to make sure the doctor didn’t have much to do.
But where are we working on prevention in society? And I mean, really working on it?
Most people who suffer from Mental Health conditions have nothing at all wrong with their brain. Some people suffer symptoms that relate to inflammation in their gut, and that should always be checked, but it seems the majority suffer as a result of negative thought patterns and an inability to cope with circumstances.
If someone comes to me with a back injury, I do not look to see if there is a family history of back complaints. I want to know if there back was once healthy? If so, and the answer is almost always yes, we then go upstream to when it was healthy and find out what the person either was, or was not doing that led them to have a sore back. Most often, it was related to what they “were not” doing – exercise, movement, mobilization through a variety of movements.
Similarly, if a person presents with mental health challenges, I want to go back to a time whey they did not feel this way. What were they doing, or not doing, that could have led them to where they are now.
It can be amazing what we find. But most commonly, people were not taking any deliberate actions in their lives that left them feeling good about who they are. Self focus had seem them move away from virtuous behaviors that left them feeling that they are a good person, someone of value. These actions breathe life into a person’s spirit and keep them living at a higher, more positive vibration.
We can do better to help people go back to these behaviors that deliver goodness to others. The rewards can be magical.
