SUPPORTING MENTAL HEALTH AS EMPLOYEES, LEADERS, AND PEOPLE

May 21

A note from Sara:

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Fourteen years ago, I lost my brother to suicide. He was 18.

That loss has driven so much of my work and life. There’s an urgency to my focus for these deeply personal reasons, and what I’ve learned is that I am far from alone.

Every person at At The Start has experienced direct loss, is actively supporting someone who struggles, or is doing their own work on their mental health. All of us.

I share this not for sympathy, but because it matters. Mental health struggles are not a niche experience. They are not something that happens to other people, other families, other teams. They are woven into most lives and, most often, unseen and unacknowledged.

This edition of At The Starting Line is for those of us at work who are carrying something heavy and still showing up, who want to help but don't know how, or who have ever looked fine while feeling anything but.

BURNOUT DOESN'T ALWAYS LOOK LIKE FALLING APART

High achievers are rarely the people anyone worries about. They deliver, lead, are in every meeting, on every call, and somehow still produce results. It looks easy.

And yet.

There's a specific kind of exhaustion that high performers carry. It can look like shorter patience in meetings or a growing distance from work that used to feel meaningful. Physical symptoms like a tension headache that won't quit or sleep that isn't restorative may get explained away as "just a busy stretch."

But just because a person can endure, doesn’t mean they should.

The value and discipline of recovery is also essential. And for most high achievers, recovery is the skill least developed and most needed.

THE SEVEN TYPES OF REST (AND WHY SLEEP ISN'T ENOUGH)

So how do we get the rest our bodies and brains actually need?

Most of us default to sleep, and YES, sleep matters. But it's often not the whole answer.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith developed a framework that identifies seven distinct types of rest: physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social, and spiritual. The core idea is that rest is not the opposite of activity. It's the recovery of a specific, depleted resource.

This is why a full night of sleep can still leave you flat, or why you can feel drained even when you're not technically overworked. The wrong type of rest doesn't refill the right tank.

It’s a question worth sitting with. Try this: Look at your calendar from the last month. Which of these seven types of rest appear anywhere in it? Which are completely absent?

That absence is data and can give you a path forward. One that may actually have the desired result.

RECLAIMING YOUR TIME

Understanding what kind of rest you need is one thing. Creating space for it is another.

One of the most consistent patterns Sara sees coaching senior leaders isn't a lack of skill or commitment; it's a loss of ownership over their own time. It happens gradually with protected thinking time being given over to urgent needs. The schedule becomes reactive and weeks are filled up before they begin. Without space to think, to process, or to be anything other than available, the quality of leadership quietly erodes.

This is not something only early professionals deal with. Even the most seasoned leaders can get too loose with their time.

Time and again, the topic of time blocking comes up. Leaders often shake their heads and say they know they should but it also feels like too simple an answer. Truth is, it may not be the answer, but it’s a start.

Treating the calendar as a strategic resource and not an open invitation allows you to be intentional in advance about where your energy goes and why.

The results are often immediate and sometimes surprising. Leaders report sleeping better, feeling more refreshed and making sharper decisions. Nothing in their workload changed, but they did stop letting the calendar happen to them.

If your schedule is managing you more than you're managing it, that's worth paying attention to.

WHAT MANAGERS NEED — AND WERE RARELY GIVEN

Individual leaders can do a lot to protect their own well-being. But what about creating environments where everyone on a team can do the same?

That starts with managers. Most managers want to support their people when they're struggling. They just don't know how.

Without a framework, good intentions turn into uncomfortable silences, vague check-ins, or the most common outcome: avoiding the conversation entirely because it feels too personal, too risky, or too hard to know where to start.

A few things that guide this work:

Notice and name, without assuming. You don't need to know what's wrong. Try something like: "I've noticed you haven't seemed like yourself lately. I just wanted to check in." That opens a door.
Listen more than you advise. The instinct to fix is strong. The most powerful thing a manager can do is make someone feel genuinely heard, without rushing to solutions.
Know what's yours to hold, and what isn't. Managers are not therapists. They are responsible for creating environments where people feel safe enough to ask for help. And then knowing what resources exist when someone does.
Psychological safety is a daily practice. How a manager responds to the first person who shows vulnerability sets the tone for everyone.

988: THERE IS HELP. THE RIGHT HELP.

Sometimes what someone is carrying goes beyond burnout and beyond what a better calendar or a supportive manager can reach.

For those moments, help exists. Real help.

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline connects people to trained counselors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Working alongside state health organizations, At The Start has seen the support behind this number in action. The infrastructure is real. The people answering are trained. The help is there.

Whether you are struggling yourself, worried about someone you love, or a professional looking for a resource to share, 988 is a call or text away.

Save it. Share it. Help normalize it the way we've normalized calling 911.

WALK WITH US: OUT OF THE DARKNESS | WESTCHESTER COUNTY

This year, Sara is again serving as Walk Chair for the Westchester County Out of the Darkness Walk, hosted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

The Out of the Darkness Walks raise funds for suicide prevention research and community programs. Every dollar raised, every person who shows up, every conversation along the route is part of building a world with fewer losses like the one Sara's family experienced.

This year's Westchester walk: 📅 October 17, 2026📍Mamaroneck

🔗 Register, donate, or learn more: https://afspwalks.donordrive.com/participants/3517471

If you've lost someone, if you've found your own way through darkness, or if you simply want to show up, we would love to have you there. You can walk with us, sponsor, donate, or share this with someone who needs to see it.

BEFORE YOU CLOSE THIS

If you read this far, you know mental health awareness isn't a month. It's a practice built in small, daily decisions.

The people who navigate this well are not the ones who never struggle. They're the ones who've learned that naming what's hard is where handling it begins.

Take care of yourselves. Reach out if there's anything the At The Start team can do.

988 — Call or text. 24/7. Free and confidential.

Sara Ramos