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My Lifelong Mental Health and Wellbeing Journey

Gary shares his biggest lessons from his journey to achieve mental health and wellbeing and how the PS community provides him with tools and support.

Gary Lewis
Gary Lewis

My mental health and wellbeing journey, like anybody’s, is lifelong. It starts with childhood (“It’s all mum and dad’s fault!), then your education experience (Let’s not go there.), and is intertwined in the myriad of choices you make as you become an adult (At wildly different rates!).

Not everyone can work out why they’re on a rollercoaster of emotions with the same questions circling their mind. It took me a long time to realize what my raging frustrations were and to meet them head-on.

Now is the time to learn and practice self-reflection, self-serve with tools that can help, or get advice from professionals in the flesh or virtually.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that everybody needs somebody to open up to. They can be family, friends, or even a colleague. Bottling any negativity up is toxic and will pollute your outlook, morale, mood, and physical body.

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that everybody needs somebody to open up to. They can be family, friends, or even a colleague. Bottling any negativity up is toxic and will pollute your outlook, morale, mood, and physical body.”

My wife is a super-smart, incisive Special Educational Needs Coordinator at a tough primary school and she knows me better than I know myself. I’m very lucky to have her. Back pain’s biggest cause? Stress! For a very long time, my stress manifested itself physically. But now I’m committed to fixing that and work with an amazing chiropractor.

Publicis Sapient (PS) gives us a free membership to the meditation app, Headspace, and I try to use it regularly. Exercise, even in short bursts is 100% the biggest mood lift you can give yourself, (Cheers, Joe Wicks!) so I also carve out time when I can.

Working on your mental health needs to be as important as your job, your relationships (with yourself and others), and your other attitudes to say, food or exercise. It needs to be your MVP as it’ll support everything you do and think.

At PS, the people and support services like our mental health business resource group, Headline, are amazing. I’m comfortable talking to my colleagues and I urge everybody to check in with each other often. Meet up in real life if you can!

I feel so at home with my colleagues at PS that a few of us are working on Unbottled, a men’s mental health initiative. The program is in the early stages, but I’m looking forward to seeing our progress.

Gary Lewis
Gary Lewis
Manager Copywriter, PS Experience Studio
Gary joined PS London in late 2019 for a freelance gig and hasn’t looked back, going perm earlier this year. As a UX writer/copywriter he’s worked on a variety of FS projects and is always on hand to help out in the studio.Outside of work, Gary is a lifelong record collector, film, TV, food, drink and culture lover and a dad of 1. All enough to keep him busy.

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