This email in 30 seconds: Mental Health Awareness Week is a good prompt to name something most organisations sidestep: neurodivergent people are at significantly higher risk of poor mental health, and the workplace is often a direct contributor. This newsletter looks at why that happens, what it looks like, and what both individuals and organisations can do about it.
Hello Reader,
It is Mental Health Awareness Week. And I want to talk about something that does not get enough airtime in the mental health conversation: the relationship between neurodivergence and mental health, and the role that work plays in it.
Let me be clear from the outset. This is not a capability conversation. Neurodivergent people are not struggling because they are less capable. They are often struggling because they are working incredibly hard to function in systems that were not designed for their brains.
The energy cost nobody talks about
When a workplace is not set up to work with someone's cognitive style, that person does not simply find things a bit harder. They spend an enormous amount of energy compensating. Masking. Pre-empting. Managing.
I have heard it described like this: "I expended a huge amount of energy hiding something. To the detriment of other things."
That energy has to come from somewhere. Over time, the withdrawal from that account leads to overwhelm, then burnout, and for many people, into longer periods of anxiety or depression. It is not a dramatic spiral. It tends to be a slow and exhausting one. And it often happens quietly, with the person maintaining the appearance of coping right up until they cannot.
This is not rare. Research consistently shows that a significant proportion of neurodivergent employees report negative impacts on their mental wellbeing as a direct result of their experience at work. The pattern is well documented. It is not inevitable.
The hyperfocus trap
There is another side to this that is less often named.
When a neurodivergent person is working on something they are genuinely invested in, they can enter a state of hyperfocus that produces extraordinary output. The organisation benefits significantly. The individual gives everything they have.
The problem is that during that period, everything else falls away. Sleep, food, rest, the things that regulate the nervous system and replenish cognitive capacity. When the project ends, or the interest shifts, the crash that follows can be severe. Not because the person did anything wrong, but because the intensity of that focus had a cost that was never accounted for.
This matters because organisations often celebrate that kind of dedication without ever asking what it took to produce it.
What individuals can do
I want to be honest here. This is not primarily an individual responsibility problem. But there are things that help, and I would rather share them than say nothing.
- Boundaries matter. Not as a buzzword, but in the literal sense: knowing where your energy ends and where your obligations begin. Checking in with yourself before you are running on empty rather than after.
- Priorities help. When everything feels urgent, nothing is. Being explicit about what actually has to happen today, and what can wait, reduces the cognitive load of constant decision-making.
- Rest is not a reward. For neurodivergent people especially, downtime that lets the brain genuinely switch off is not optional. It is functional recovery.
And where possible, working with your natural rhythms rather than against them. If you know you work better in focused blocks, protecting those. If you know certain environments drain you, naming that and finding alternatives.
None of this is simple in practice. Which is why the organisational piece matters so much.
What organisations can do
The goal is not to add a mental health policy to a system that is otherwise unchanged. It is to look at where the system creates unnecessary strain in the first place.
- Start with clarity. Unclear expectations, shifting priorities and ambiguous communication are significant sources of stress for neurodivergent employees. Getting this right is not a neurodiversity adjustment. It is good management.
- Make adjustments before people reach crisis point. Reasonable adjustments are not a reward for disclosing at the right time or being persistent enough to push through a process. They should be available early, implemented quickly, and reviewed regularly.
- Train managers to notice, not just respond. A manager who knows what overwhelm, hyperfocus and masking actually look like can intervene before someone is signed off. That is valuable to the individual and to the organisation.
- Look at workload, not just wellbeing initiatives. A meditation app does not help someone who is drowning in a role that was designed for a different cognitive style. Address the structural conditions, not just the symptoms.
And take seriously the idea that when a neurodivergent employee is not performing as expected, the first question should be: what is getting in the way? Not: is this the right person?
It rarely is a capability issue. It is almost always a systems issue.
This week, if you have neurodivergent people in your team, the most useful thing you can do is not share a wellbeing article with them. It is to ask what would make their work easier, and then actually do something about it.
Until next time,
Tania
Founder, PegSquared
P.S.S This week we announced the first UK research on neuro-inclusive recruitment. More on this next week, but if you are interested in finding out more, have read here: Neuro-Inclusive Recruitment | PegSquared
