How To Choose The Right Support System In 2023?
- Written by Daily Bulletin
How to Choose the Right Support System at work and life? Everyone needs a strong support system in order to have an outlet or safe place to process their struggles, emotions, and thoughts. This blog post covers support systems and how to find a strong one. Let’s check it out!
What is a Support System?
A support system is a group of people we can rely on for both emotional and practical support, including family, friends, and coworkers. When we are in school, our classmates, teachers, and other staff members may offer support, and as we advance in our professional jobs, our coworkers may also be a source of support.
Benefits Of a Support System
Social Support
If you’re suffering from mental illness and trying to isolate yourself from others, it might not be a good idea as this only exacerbates your health status. The truth is your brain can turn against you when you’re at your most vulnerable. Consequently, you would end up dealing with more anxiety, melancholy and other conditions.
With social support, you will once again get connected with the world outside and have the opportunity to focus more on your relationships with other people. When you are in your most vulnerable moments, your loved ones who might be your family, your friends or your colleagues would be there, lending their ears to you and giving the best advice as they could. But at times, you may find yourself on the giving end of the advice. Keep in mind that we are far from perfect and asking for help from others is necessary.
Positive Influence
Let’s imagine this. You’re coming home after work and getting stressed about the pressure that your boss puts on you. The moment you decide to drink alcohol or cry yourself to sleep, your husband is there suggesting eating something wholesome. You’re wasting your beautiful Sunday in bed, complaining about how terrible it is to get back to work tomorrow, your mother suddenly drops by, opening the blinds and tidying up the house. These unprompted check-ins will definitely uplift your whole mood and give you the energy you need to adopt healthier behaviors.
It is inevitable that there will be days you don’t feel like doing all of these activities at all. You might also be irritated, pressed and enraged. That’s when people come into your life and provide you with buoyancy, saving you from rock bottom. The moment you recover and look back on the whole journey, you will feel nothing but thankful towards your people.
Improved self-esteem
We are humans and we all want to be loved. And when do we feel loved? It’s when we know that there are people always on our sides, supporting us no matter what. We feel more confident and better about ourselves since we have someone to rely on and who can rely on us for support.
Healthy Distractions
Not all of us are comfortable enough to share our depression or any other problems we may encounter with other people. For some people, it might be because their privacy is the key. For others, they just know that people surrounding them are also struggling and therefore, they should deal with it alone. But sometimes, you can still take advantage of your support system without getting everything off your chest. It’s not always right to explain exactly what’s happened to you.
You don’t have to talk about your problems if you don’t want to. Instead, having a support group will play the role of healthy distractions. However the catch is that you have to strike a balance between entertaining distractions and the ones that only delay your willingness to take action. Use of alcohol and illegal narcotics to dull the senses are examples of unhealthy diversions. A hike with your buddies or learning to meditate during a yoga class are both healthy distractions.
How to Choose the Right Support System for your Business?
Cultivate positive relationships
Creating positive relationships enables employees to communicate both inside and outside of the workplace, makes them feel safe at work, and helps them become more involved and less withdrawn from their responsibilities. More open conversation allows everyone to gain a better understanding of their coworkers, both professionally and personally.
Peer support
Peer support allows employees to help one another in a mutual space within the workplace. Employees can talk to others who have had similar experiences, enabling them to take better care of their well-being and mental health.
By investing in 3rd-party peer support training, peer counselling allows individuals to feel comfortable talking with someone they are related to, improving employee resilience and reducing absences.
Develop an Employee Assistance Program.
Employee Assistance Programs are employee benefit programs that many companies currently provide. This program can assist employees in dealing with any personal issues that may be affecting their job performance, health, and wellbeing by allowing them to talk with an independent adviser either in person or over the phone.
EAPs are extremely advantageous when building a formal workplace support system because they include assessment, short-term counseling, and referral for employees as well as their family.