You would never step onto a site without your proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Mental health requires its own PPE loadout. Remember that a hard hat is useless if it is left in the truck.

Mental health PPE works the same way. Now let's consider the following PPE items and how they correlate to protecting your own mental health.

5-Gas monitor 

Consider why we utilize a 5-gas, or multi-gas monitor. In drilling or trenching, we clip a gas monitor to our vest because hazards like hydrogen sulfide (H2S) are invisible. By the time you realize you're breathing it in, it's often too late. Depression and burnout are the H2S of mental health: invisible, odorless hazards that slowly replace your moral oxygen and drain your resilience.

For your peers, you are acting as their monitor. Watch for micro-changes: the joker who goes completely quiet, or the reliable hand showing up late. In our industry, the default answer to "How are you doing?" is always "Fine." Don't stop there. Ask the "second ask." "You've seemed a little off the last couple of days, man. Seriously, what's going on?" Now you have sounded the alarm that they are morally oxygen-deficient.

Hearing protection

We wear earplugs to reduce job-site noise levels and prevent permanent hearing damage while still hearing rig noises and our co-workers' communications. Mental hearing protection is the ability to set boundaries. It means putting your phone on "Do Not Disturb" to guarantee six hours of uninterrupted sleep. It is actively tuning out the toxic site gossip or the constant doom-scrolling in your hotel room, while staying tuned in to the people who matter most back home.

Protection for your mental well-being is equally as important as what you bring to a job site. / Image courtesy: Jimmy Nilsson

Fall protection 

You don't put on a harness and tie off at the top of the derrick; you tie off before you start the climb. Your support network is your fall arrest system. Financial crises, a divorce back home, or the threat of project delays can make the ground give way beneath you. If you are already tied off to an Employee Assistance Program or confidential services designed specifically for financial counseling and mental health support, the drop might shake you up. Still, the harness catches you before you hit the bottom. Become an anchor point for your team and know your own anchor points to tie off when you are close to the edge.

"Depression and burnout are the H2S of mental health: invisible, odorless hazards that slowly replace your moral oxygen and drain your resilience."

The Stop Work Authority (SWA) 

Every worker on a site has the right to stop an unsafe situation before it becomes catastrophic. We use our Stop Work Authority right when we see an immediate danger to life and health, no questions asked. If the pressure becomes overwhelming, the financial stress feels insurmountable, or the isolation turns into thoughts of self-harm, asking for help is pulling your own SWA.

You or your coworkers can Dial or text 988. The 988 suicide and crisis prevention hotline is completely free, confidential, and available 24/7. You do not have to be actively suicidal to call; it is your near-miss reporting lifeline for any emotional distress crisis. You will be connected to trained counselors who understand how to de-escalate a crisis.

It takes courage to stop the operation, but we do it because pushing through a critical hazard ultimately is what gets people killed.