May: Mental Health Awareness Month
By Koryn Sheppard
The month of May is Mental Health Awareness Month. May is also associated with the international distress signal, “Mayday”, which originated from the French phrase venez m’aider, meaning “come help me.” In a profession as high-stakes and adversarial as the law, May serves as a vital reminder to examine our relationship with that distress signal. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) provides a broader perspective, noting that one in five U.S. adults experiences mental illness each year. This statistic underscores that mental health challenges are a widespread human experience.
Lawyering often rewards those who appear invincible, yet the statistics regarding mental health issues within our field suggest that many are quietly sending out internal distress calls while maintaining a stoic exterior. Recognizing these signals—both in ourselves and in those around us—is not just a wellness practice; it is a fundamental professional competency.
This reality is corroborated by the 2016 study conducted by the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, which revealed significant rates of depression, anxiety, and problem drinking among legal professionals, serving as a catalyst for national wellness programs and continuing to be the gold standard for attorney health data today.
The legal profession has a historically high barrier when it comes to admitting vulnerability. Defeating this stigma requires a fundamental shift in how we perceive professional strength. In our field, we often mistakenly equate silence with resilience, yet true professional competence involves recognizing when the complexity of a situation exceeds our current internal resources. Far from a sign of weakness, signaling for support is an act of strategic intelligence. By reclaiming the “Mayday” distress call as a tool, we begin to dismantle the outdated belief that a lawyer’s value lies in their ability to endure in isolation and silence. When we treat mental health support as a valuable tool, we create a workplace where every member of the team feels empowered to seek the help they need before a situation reaches a point of crisis.
The biological cost of ignoring a “Mayday” is significant. When we operate in a state of constant, unmanaged stress, our brains remain locked in a sympathetic nervous system response, commonly known as fight-or-flight. Over time, this chronic activation leads to a depletion of the neurochemicals that allow for complex problem-solving and emotional regulation. Research in interpersonal neurobiology shows that when we feel isolated in our stress, our cognitive performance actually declines. Conversely, the act of “co-regulation”—the simple process of reaching out for support or offering it to another—triggers the release of oxytocin, which acts as a biological buffer against the damaging effects of cortisol. By creating an environment where it is safe to signal for help, we aren’t just being kind; we are literally protecting the collective cognitive health of our teams.
This awareness may extend to the people we serve. As legal professionals, we often interact with clients and litigants at the most volatile and stressful moments of their lives. Many individuals involved in the litigation process exhibit signs of significant mental health disorders or acute trauma responses. When a client becomes erratic or a colleague seems unusually withdrawn, they are often sending a coded “Mayday.”
Ultimately, Mental Health Awareness Month is about dismantling the myth that asking for help is a sign of failure or weakness. In the cockpit of an aircraft, a “Mayday” call is a decisive, professional action taken to ensure the safety of everyone on board. We should view our mental well-being with the same gravity. Whether it is noticing that a peer has been working uncharacteristically late or recognizing that your own “check engine” light is flashing, acknowledging the signal is the first step toward recovery. By fostering a culture that honors the distress call, we ensure we have the resilience to continue advocating for our clients and our community.
To help us practice this communal awareness, our wellness sub-committee introduces the “Mayday Signal Challenge.” This month, we encourage you to perform a “purposeful check-in” with one person in your professional circle—be it a colleague, a staff member, or even a client who seems to be struggling. We encourage you to reach out to a colleague for help, or to seek your own support regarding a challenge you are currently facing—whether it is related to work stress, social isolation, or maintaining a sustainable work-life balance. This isn’t a traditional status update on a case, but rather a brief, human-to-human inquiry to see how they are doing. By intentionally opening a channel for communication, you are acting as a “grounding wire” for someone else’s stress, which science shows can lower your own physiological markers of anxiety while strengthening the social fabric of our workplace. By treating “mental health” simply as “health,” we normalize the act of providing or seeking assistance whenever we are challenged.
