• Each year, approximately one in every five Australians will experience a mental illness
• It is estimated about 45% of Australians may experience mental illness at some point in their lives
• Mental health conditions can range from mild, lasting only a few weeks, to moderate and severe, impacting on all areas of a person's ability to function day to day.

Some of the main groups of mental health conditions include:

• anxiety disorders
• mood disorders including depression and bipolar disorder
• psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia
• eating disorders
• trauma-related disorders (such as post-traumatic stress disorder)
• substance abuse disorders

References:

Heads up

Mental illness is a general term that refers to a group of illnesses that affect the brain and can alter a persons thoughts, perceptions, feelings and behaviours.

Each illness has its own symptoms, but common signs of mental illness in adults and adolescents can include the following:

• Excessive worrying or fear
• Feeling excessively sad or low
• Confused thinking or problems concentrating and learning
• Extreme mood changes, including uncontrollable “highs” or feelings of euphoria
• Prolonged or strong feelings of irritability or anger
• Avoiding friends and social activities
• Difficulties understanding or relating to other people
• Changes in sleeping habits or feeling tired and low energy
• Changes in eating habits such as increased hunger or lack of appetite
• Changes in sex drive
• Difficulty perceiving reality (delusions or hallucinations, in which a person experiences and senses things that don't exist in objective reality)

References:
National Alliance on Mental Illness

To ensure your needs are met in the workplace we may discuss with you and your employer the following modifications:

• offering flexible working arrangements (e.g. job rotation, variable start and finish times)
• a workplace coach or mentor
• access to the employee assistance program (EAP)
• varied tasks, or possibility to manage a self-paced workload
• extra time to learn tasks and option to attend tailored training sessions.

Reference: HeadsUp