Mental Health Days: Taking a break

Mental health days are becoming the new sick days as more people are willing to acknowledge when they need a break. Even parents of elementary school children are finding the benefits of having a non-scheduled day of rest and relaxation or even fun with their children!

Mental health days are just how they sound: a day that you take off from work or other responsibilities because you can’t emotionally handle going in.

Possible reasons could be stress, feeling overwhelmed, needing a day of rest, catching up on sleep, or just not feeling like yourself.

Ideally, mental health days are taken in advance of exhaustion or emotional distress. Oftentimes we put too much on our plates and eventually our bodies need to recharge - a mental health day can offer that for you.

Some people enjoy packing their mental health day with responsibilities or errands they aren’t otherwise able to accomplish whereas some people like to sit on the couch and watch Netflix. Other ideas for mental health days are activities you don’t normally do like getting a massage, taking a long bath, reading, or taking a day trip somewhere.

How you choose to spend your mental health day should be up to you. It’s your mental health and you need to listen to your own needs in order to make the day worthwhile.

Try to resist the urge to explain or justify your decision to take a day off, too. Mental health days should be without guilt or obligation as that defeats the purpose!