International Men's Day: How male founders can safeguard their mental health

It's crucial business owners take care of their mental health during these stormy times. Working from home, dealing with potential financial hardship and coping with the wider uncertainty about the future is a tough combination.

While it can seem overwhelming, there are lots of practical things you can do to ease the burden and make life more enjoyable as International Men's Day rolls around.

Manage your expectations

It's important for business owners to manage their expectations and think about what they can control.

Ultimately, this can have an impact on productivity. Entrepreneurs are passionate about what they do, so the prospect of slowing down is tough, but one of the worst things for mental health is putting too much pressure on yourself.

Keep aware of what's going on, but social media and the news can also add to our anxiety. Think about limiting the time you spend watching the news or scrolling through social media.

Everyone gets frustrated. Being able to share your worries and vent when you need to can really help. This could be with partners, friends or a community of other business owners. Be honest about your struggles and look for the support you need – everyone is in this together.

Undertake positive actions

There are a number of positive actions you can take to get yourself into a positive mindset, including:

• Working on non-essential areas of the business, such as updating your website or building an email list

• Thinking about alternative ways of making money. What can you do to offer a better service? Is there anything you can do online?

• Taking online classes or webinars, such as a Lunch and Learn

Try to stay mentally active, maintain your professional development and where possible, share it with others.

Watch this webinar to develop a layout to set up a productive home office:

Create a healthy work environment

Setting boundaries will help ensure you stay productive when working from home.

It's about keeping good boundaries. When we go to the office, that creates a boundary. One of the mental health challenges of working from home is that we can get overwhelmed.

That includes time boundaries, so it's important to try to get into a routine quickly. Without that, business owners may be tempted to work every available minute.

Making a coffee, going for a walk, reading a book or undertaking another activity every time you start work establishes a ritual that will help you transition into work mode.

Socialising is key to our mental health. Keep in contact with friends, colleagues or even fellow entrepreneurs as regularly as possible.

Stay physically healthy

Keeping healthy and maintaining good physical health is inextricably linked with good mental health.

All efforts to improve your physical health will improve your mental health. Doing things such as getting outside in nature and being mindful, or perhaps doing yoga, will help. That interlink between mental and physical health is absolutely crucial.

Exercise can help take your mind off things and improve cognitive outputs and the quality of your work.

Eating well is important for mental health, too. That means maintaining a healthy and varied diet that's proportional to one's needs.

Relevant resources

• Small business owners: When it's OK to not be OK

• Five ways to manage your mental health