Before we begin, I want to make one thing quite clear–I am a firm believer in taking mental health days. These look different to everyone, but the basic idea is to take a break from your day-to-day life for self-care. For me, this often looks like sleeping in, rewatching my favorite episodes of Parks and Recreation, eating foods that make me happy, and cuddling with my beloved stuffed elephant George. These days are so needed. I’ve been dealing with an anxiety disorder of varying severity since high school. Taking mental health days help me find solid ground and take a breath when my life feels overwhelming.
My most recent mental health day — complete with Parks and Rec, George the Elephant, and Trader Joe’s Fruit Jellies.
But as much as I love taking a mental health day, and how important self-care is, I sometimes have a hard time finding balance between doing nothing on purpose and letting myself drown in nothingness. For me, there’s a fine line between taking time off and letting time off take over. Like I said, mental health days are important, and sometimes I need a total break from my life (as many of us do). But it’s easy to get caught in a downward spiral of nothingness. Doing nothing is easy — a lot easier than doing the things that are stressing me out. It’s much easier to talk myself into staying in bed and zoning out to Netflix than it is to convince myself to go to class, go to work, go for a run, finish my homework, attend meetings, eat food that comes from the earth…you know, all the stuff functional people do on a daily basis.
But multiple mental health days in a row or in a week quickly becomes counterintuitive. The longer I spend “taking care of myself” without actually doing productive things to nurture my wellbeing, the crappier I feel. That statement sounds pretty obvious, but in the throes of an anxiety-filled day or week or semester, it’s pretty revolutionary. You mean…getting OUT of bed might make me feel better? W H A T?! That’s crazy.
Okay, maybe my inner monologue isn’t that shocked at the concept of doing things when I’m feeling down. But in all fairness, it’s hard to do functional people things when you’re feeling like the world is coming apart at the seams. But that’s exactly when it’s the most helpful to get up, go for a run, shower, tackle that looming project or meeting, eat real food, and face the world again.
Mental health days need to be intentional, followed by action-based plans to follow. Doing nothing serves a purpose when you can buttress it with plans to mitigate the situation(s) that led to needing a day off. So how exactly do you find intentionality in nothing?
For me, mindfulness is the first thing that comes to mind (ha, get it). In order for a day of nothing to be truly beneficial for my mental health, I need to be present in the moments I spend being a couch potato. Being aware of why I am taking a mental health day, what I am trying to destress from, and how the things I choose to, or not to, do will help me get to a space where I can finally combat these stressors. Setting an intention and timeframe for a mental health day is way more efficient and helpful than lying in bed until I “feel better.”
Because, if I’m honest with myself, lying in bed isn’t going to make me feel better. It’s just going to let me stew in my stress, make me want to stay in bed more, and never actually accomplish anything.
Featured Image Photo Credit: Muriel de Seze/Getty Images [license]
The post Managing Mental Health Days appeared first on Culture Shock.