Keen to get views from psychologists and anyone in the mental health sector on whether you have seen an increase in business owners struggling because their firms aren't performing &nbsp;in what is a challenging economic and fiscal climate? Have any people approached you because they feel they are running uphill and the daily grind is just no longer fun? Exactly how linked are business sentiment and psychology? Any thoughts or insights, send them across ASAP.

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The taxed mind

The daily grind has lost its spark. What felt purposeful now feels like survival mode. 

People are coming to me saying they’re exhausted. Properly worn down.
“I used to love what I do. Now I feel trapped.”

Cost of living means staying in jobs that don’t light people up because they can’t afford the risk of change. That’s brutal for wellbeing. 

Business owners tell me they’re firefighting constantly, whilst their motivation evaporates. Financial stress doesn’t stay in the spreadsheet. It seeps into sleep, relationships, and sense of self.
It’s heartbreaking to watch talented people lose touch with why they started. Purpose gets buried under pressure. 

Brilliant when you're working. Lost when you're not? Sarah Gatford works with freelance writers and producers in film and TV. People who are excellent at the job and adrift between contracts. Outdoors, online, and sometimes with goats. She has worked with the National Film and Television School. She is an accredited coach and Positive Psychology practitioner based in Derbyshire, an EMCC Senior Practitioner with an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, and her research is in self-care. She writes about self-care, wellbeing and the odd business of working for yourself. Thirty years interpreting between British Sign Language and English in theatre, healthcare and video relay taught her to listen for the hesitation rather than the sentence. She is more interested in what people are not saying than in what they are.

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Sarah Gatford

When you’re counselling more and more business owners daily, that’s your proof the economy isn’t just squeezing profits, it’s squeezing people. I’m hearing it constantly from SME owners: “I’m running uphill and it’s not fun anymore.” The pressure of payroll, rising costs, clients stalling, HMRC, and trying to look confident for the team while you’re quietly fried. That’s not drama. That’s chronic stress doing what it does. Business sentiment and psychology are welded together. When the outlook feels uncertain, the brain goes into threat mode. You get tunnel vision, decision fatigue, irritability, procrastination, and a real dip in confidence. Then it leaks into the business: mood drops, communication gets spiky, sickness absence rises, and performance slips. Vicious circle. This is why Mental Health First Aiders should be as normal as physical first aiders. Not to treat anyone, but to spot early warning signs, have a proper human conversation, and point people to the right support

Kate Underwood is all about honest, no-nonsense HR that actually works for small businesses. With a background in some of the world’s best-known brands, she now brings that big business know-how to smaller teams who want to get things right without all the faff. She believes businesses work best when people and strategy are in sync. When goals are clear, people feel supported, and everyone actually wants to show up. Kate’s style is practical, empowering and refreshingly jargon-free. She helps business owners build simple, effective HR processes that support great culture, good communication and confident leadership. She’s also a self-confessed HR tech geek and is known for her love of apps, gadgets and anything that saves time and stress. Her approach helps cut out the chaos so teams can focus on what really matters. No more sleepless nights, awkward chats or endless paperwork. Just HR that actually helps.

Kate Underwood

Running a business in today’s economy is a full time psychological stress test. 

More business owners are struggling not because they are failing, but because relentless tax pressure, regulation and uncertainty break the link between effort and reward. When people work harder yet fall further behind, motivation collapses. That is a known psychological trigger for burnout, anxiety and depression.

As a former Clinical Nurse Specialist in Mental Health, I speak regularly to founders who tell me they’re running on empty. Sleep goes, confidence follows, and decision making deteriorates just when it matters most. This is not about resilience training or positive thinking. It is about an economic environment that is quietly exhausting the people keeping it alive.

If we want productive, sustainable businesses, mental health has to be treated as economic infrastructure, not a personal coping problem where only the ‘fittest’ survive.

Trish McGirr doesn’t do jargon. She’s the strategist corporates, lenders and boards call when financial distress threatens to spiral from balance sheet to headline. Director of Autris Ltd and founder of Repossession Rescue, she has built her reputation by exposing the human cost of debt and the chaos it creates for business. Her authority was forged in governance, first in the NHS, then through national consulting roles shaping policy and strategy. Since 2003 she has also lived and breathed property and finance, advising on distressed assets and risk. That mix of boardroom insight and frontline reality means she speaks with rare credibility on mortgages, debt, consumer impact and the challenges of deploying AI responsibly. Trish doesn’t just comment, she challenges. She calls out complacency in finance and corporate strategy, demanding solutions that balance profit with principle. For her, debt, vulnerability and automation aren’t operational headaches; they’re governance priorities that decide trust, compliance and brand survival. And when financial decisions hit the frontline, Trish is the voice that makes clear: risk becomes reputation, and governance is survival.

The taxed mind

3 responses from the Newspage community
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Sarah Gatford

The Positivity Pathfinder - Head of Interactions at Sarah Gatford Ltd

Kate Underwood

Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training

Patricia McGirr

Founder at Repossession Rescue Network

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3 responses from the Newspage community
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