The post-COVID-19 world poses a lot of stress for everybody but, a group of people that may have to feel the brunt mostly are cybersecurity professionals. Even before the pandemic, they didn't find their jobs easy.

They often have to deal with low budgets, high expectations, and risks that are peculiar to their jobs. Now, they will have to add the pressure of the post-pandemic world to what they are already going through.

If you consider the fact that 1 in 6.8 people are experiencing mental health problems in the workplace (14.7%), it becomes clear the type of problem we have especially, with cybersecurity professionals. The stress on cybersecurity professionals becomes more profound if we also appreciate that they have to deal with cyberattacks and cyber threats every 39 seconds on average, according to a study.

Where they get it right, they must have put in a lot of mental work, and when they get it wrong, the impact is usually catastrophic on the organization. A lot of issues are responsible for the mental stress IT professionals have to go through. Some of them are:

1. Staff shortage

Working long hours due to a shortage in the workforce is a potent means of stress and mental health problems. This is the case with cybersecurity professionals.

One estimate shows that some 300,000 cybersecurity positions in the US alone remain vacant. There is no how these vacant positions will not be filled if we want to tackle the security problems and what it boils down to is that people will have to put in more man-hour to cope with the demand.

A survey of 343 cybersecurity executives by the Enterprise Strategy Group and the Information Systems Security Association discovered that about 40 percent of them said that the shortage in skilled-staff has resulted in high rates of burnout and staff turnover.  

A persistent burnout will lead to mental health problems, and this is what these professionals have to endure daily.

2. Little or no support from executives

The job is stressful enough but, it gets frustrating to realize that you can't get the necessary support from the executives. In any organization, the executives are in charge of the amount you spend on any project; they determine what goes to a department and monitor how you spend it.

Even when you know what to do and how to do it, you don't have an option other than to hope for the best if you don't have the resources. You may become depressed for the fact that the global spending on cybersecurity products and services for mitigating cybercrime may exceed $1 trillion cumulatively from 2017 to 2021, and your company is not forthcoming.

This nonchalant attitude from executives is enough to give cybersecurity professionals sleepless nights and can cause mental health disorders if not properly handled.

3. Fear of failure

Cybersecurity professionals know that the security of the workers, customers, and the brand depends on them. This is not an easy burden to carry on anybody's shoulder.

There is always a consistent feeling that something terrible may go wrong. You may even suffer insomnia due to this nagging thought.

Once you don't sleep properly, there is every likelihood of breaking down, especially if this continues over a long time. There is also this fatigue you experience from trying to keep up with a cybersecurity environment that is constantly changing, new threat actors, tactics, and technologies, to new laws, regulations, guidelines, frameworks, and standards.

This may sound funny, but there is always the possibility that you are working with somebody who has mental health problems; in such an instance, your problems become more complex.

The unfortunate thing about all these problems is that you may not know that you are on the verge of a mental health disorder.

Physiotherapy to the rescue

There is usually this misconception that mental disorders are rare and happen to someone else; this is far from the truth. The true picture is that mental health issues are real, common, and treatable.

According to the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH), nearly 1 in 5 adults experience mental illness, and 20% of those are considered serious. 17% of 6-17-year-olds experience a mental health disorder. So the first thing to remember is that you are not alone.

What is more? BetterHelp has come up with a technology that can enable you to discover if you are having a mental health issue. This is a self-administered mental health test, and all you require is to just click on a test to get your result.

Quite unlike before, where you need to visit a regular therapist to ascertain your status, you can do that from the comfort of your home or even workplace. For a cybersecurity professional who has a tough schedule to meet up due to staff shortage and long hours, this is a huge respite.

Another source of help is the report that a team of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder is working to apply machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in psychiatry, with a speech-based mobile app that can categorize a patient's mental health status just like a human or even better.

Once you know the status of your mental health, you will know the best way to apply your self to stressful situations apart from the professional advice you will get from your therapist.