Worth Reading – Hiding who you are can have real effects on your mental health

This has important implications for the workplace:

The research adds to growing empirical evidence for something many of us intuitively understand: Social norms and institutional policies that limit identity expression have a very real negative mental health impact, not just in the long term but in each moment that someone feels pressure to hide an important piece of themselves, says Sienna Nielsen, a University of Michigan psychology graduate student and study lead author.

https://www.futurity.org/hiding-who-you-are-mental-health-3338482/

When businesses tell people to keep their identity out of the workplace, they are causing mental health harm. Period.

The effort to hide, the message that they should be ashamed of who they are because coworkers are uncomfortable, isn’t just about being kind; it’s a real workplace mental health issue. The question isn’t about whether it causes harm; it’s about whether you, as an employer, care that you are causing harm.

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