Claire Evers

The information provided on this site is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical or psychological advice. Consult a medical professional or healthcare provider for advice, diagnoses, or treatment. Claire Evers is not liable for risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

What is a mental health day?

A mental health day is a day you (hopefully) schedule ahead of time to allow yourself to rest your body, mind and emotions. You take a break from work. You take a break from rigorous exercise, you take a break from the pressures that surround you and weigh you down. You take a break from the guilt that socially promoted perception of perfection declares you need to present to the world. You take a break from everything.

It’s Me Time on steroids.

Why do we take one?

Owning your time

Either pick a day to rest, or your body will do it for you.

This is one of the truest phrases I’ve ever encountered. As someone who’s battled mental, emotional, social and physical health challenges, I can say with certainty that if you don’t schedule your down-time, and follow through on it, your body will derail whatever schedule you create. And it may come at the most inconvenient of times. Family time, vacation time, stressful work or school times with impending deadlines, it’s all game.

Avoiding Burnout

Burnout is real. Exhaustion, isolation, frequent illness, feeling cynical, trouble concentrating, insomnia, fatigue, irritability and depression are all symptoms of this. Why let yourself get so burnt out that your daily life reads like a list of side-effects?

Instead of allowing yourself to break down, give yourself a break. Assess where you’re at. Be honest. Do you need to exercise as often or as hard as you do, or can you take a day off? Do you need to answer emails seven days a week, or can you agree to set aside your communications for a day so you can recharge your batteries? You need to be functional for yourself. You need to be functional for your loved ones. You need to be functional to continue in society.

I know how hard it can be to choose to take a break, but if I don’t allow myself to have the downtime I need, then I almost always need to take even longer to recover from burnout that if I’d just scheduled my downtime ahead of time.

Figuring out your limits

Life is full of stresses, there’s no escaping that. But we choose for ourselves how we balance that stress with rest. You may be capable of going full-throttle 98% of the time. Or you may be closer to 70%. Or perhaps much lower. Wherever you’re at on the scale, you will always need to take time out to gauge where you’re at, assess your feelings and behaviors and determine how often you need a mental health day.

Being a normal human being

Taking a mental health day isn’t an admission of incapability. It’s an acknowledgment of your being a human being.

And with a little rest, you can continue to go further on a more regular basis. You aren’t made of stone; you’re flesh and blood and the benefits of resting are too numerous to put in a blog post. But you will notice improvement in every area of your life if you start to incorporate regular mental health days and rest days.

For some, resting when you’re used to working or striving feels counterintuitive. You want to get your list of chores done. You see how hard everyone around you is working. Taking a Mental Health Day feels like an excuse to be lazy, or a trap that will only leave you feeling guilty for the time you took off.

Why do I feel guilty when I take a break?

There is so much pressure today coming at us from the highlight reel of celebrities and faux-lebrities pushing us to always be doing better than others. With that comes a programmed need for us to be constantly on our to-do lists, out achieving miraculous things through sheer force of will.

But what we need to remember is that we have value beyond what any highlight reel could ever bring us. And that a highlight reel is just that. Only highlights.

Even the most successful, driven people on the planet need downtime.

It’s time to stop bowing our self-esteem to the pressures of our social-esteem.Or perhaps your reason is different. Maybe your connection with others has been based on what you’re able to do. Your output. Your sunny attitude.

You have value beyond what you bring to other people. You don’t need to always be superman or superwoman. Your body, mind, and emotions need rest, too. Don’t be afraid to take it.

Who should take a mental health day?

Everyone, anyone. We all experience stress, we all have needs, and if anyone is experiencing increased stress in their life from significant life events, they may need a mental health day more than anyone else.

Mental Health Day Activities

Social Media

NO SOCIAL MEDIA. Give yourself a blackout from all of that stuff. Comparison is the root of unhappiness. Block it out.

Rest

Maybe you need sleep, maybe you need sitting blankly out the window or at a television that’s playing a movie or show you’ve seen a million times before. Whatever your version of rest is, go for it. You work hard enough as it is.

Take inventory of your physical health

Does anything hurt? Just now or regularly? Pain is an indication of a problem or unfulfilled need. Try to get in touch with a doctor if anything you notice is more than you can understand or deal with.

How are you sleeping?

Eight hours a night is ideal, but if you’re regularly getting less than that, maybe you need to consider using supplements to help you relax or stay asleep. Melatonin, L-Theanine, Ashwagandha, Magnesium Glycinate all help with that. Or perhaps you need to consider a new bed or pillow? Have you tried a weight blanket or a light-blocking curtain? Whatever you need in your environment to promote frequent, restful sleep is always a good investment.

Diet and Nutrition

How are you eating? Have you tried any healthy meal-prep ideas? We’re all busy, so eating healthy is a conscious choice we have to make. Remember: if you approach food like it’s either the most effective medicine or a slow poison, it’s easier to make healthy choices.

If you’re on a budget or not the best cook, maybe look up some easy vegetarian recipes. They tend to be easier on the wallet and healthy, too.

Exercise

How are you exercising? Would some light to moderate exercise be good for you today? Or just a light stretch, then back to resting? We all go through different seasons of health and wellness. Maybe take some time to write down your goals or search for new workouts, lighter or harder, depending on where you’re at. It’ll take the research time out of your regular exercise time. It’s like meal prep. Cultivating a list of workouts that range in intensity will help you to pace yourself, naturally.

Stop to care for yourself here and now. Sometimes we don’t realize how exhausted- or hurt- we are until we take a moment to rest.

Gauge your Mental and Emotional Health

Yes, they’re different.

Mental Health is defined by the CDC as the combined status of our emotional, psychological and social well-being. Our mental health affects everything about us: how we think, feel and behave. It also determines how we make decisions, relate to other people and how we handle stress. Our mental health plays into our self-esteem, or how we value or perceive ourselves.

Emotional Health is more about how we think and feel. It’s a little more specific to our emotions. Having a positive emotional health doesn’t mean we’re happy all the time, it just provides a gauge of how we manage both positive and negative emotions. It’s our ability to cope with life. Our resilience, if you will.

If you find that you need to take a lot of mental health days, then the issue isn’t how often you’re taking them. The issue that is causing your burnout is in the daily choices you’re making, or the problems you’re overlooking. Taking time out on a Mental Health Day should- at it’s core- also be a chance to re-evalute what you need to be putting into practice on a regular basis, instead of taking time out without resolving issues you are facing.

Conclusion

If you address your needs with a mental health day by addressing both your mental and emotional needs, then you are covering more aspects of your well-being. It’s not just about your ‘in-the-moment- happiness. It’s building yourself to bounce back from negative emotions and situations. It’s providing an opportunity for your general well-being, self-esteem and decision-making processes to flourish.

I know how hard it can be to take a break, especially if you struggle with high functioning anxiety or any type of self-criticism that pushes you to overachieve all the time. I used to do this very thing (and sometimes still do). In the end, pushing myself too hard only pushes me past my breaking point and the guilt I feel over my burnout breakdowns is always so much worse than simply taking the time to know who I am and acknowledge what I need. Never taking a break makes me unhappy and unable to imagine myself and my life in a more positive view.

If you can avoid these mistakes and practice regular self-care with scheduled mental health days, however often you need them, then your chances of thriving just went up. Assess what you need daily, weekly, monthly, or at other regular intervals. Then get back to your daily life and see if the changes you made are working for you.

May God Bless and Keep You

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