How to Take An Effective Mental Health Day
Your mental / emotional well-being is just as important as your physical well-being.
A mental health day is on that is strategically geared towards stress relief, to help with burnout, and to give yourself a well deserved break. In a perfect world these are scheduled in advanced to ensure you arrange your workload to support a stress-free day. Some signs that you need a mental health day include; chronic day time fatigue, difficulty focussing, feelings of depletion, mood swings, recurring illnesses, decreased productivity, lacking patience, insomnia, apathetic toward things you once loved, dependency on caffeine.
Once you recognize you need a mental health day it is imperative to take the steps to arrange it. When discussing it with your boss, you don’t need to divulge all the details, but you should stand firm in the fact that in order to work your best you need to care for yourself. Communicate to your boss that you’re not feeling well and need to take time off in order to get back to a place where you’re operating at your best again.
Once you have your time off, it’s important to use it to reset. Spend your time on your mental health day doing things that “fill up your cup”. Think of activities, places, and people that energize you, ground you, inspire you, and things that allow you to feel relieved.
Sleep in and create a morning routine you love
Consider getting a massage, acupuncture, chiropractic appointment.
Connect with nature on a hike, at a beach, or a landscape you enjoy.
Bake something you love to share with friends
Take your favorite workout class
Meditate
Paint or draw
Have lunch with someone who inspires you.
Take a drive listening to your favorite music.
Treat yourself to a day in a coffee shop with a book.
When it comes to a mental health day, less is often more. Do things hat will allow you to feel relieved and refreshed. Some things to stay away from include; social media, work tasks, emails, people that drain you, or tasks that leave you depleted.
Theres no set rule on how many mental health days to take a year, on average at least 1-2 days a quarter would be supportive in creating a routine to create stability over time.
Despite the benefits of a mental health day, a single day is not a prescription replacement for anxiety, depression, or other mental health symptoms. If things feel unbearable and debilitating, please make sure you talk with your doctor on ways to get support.
