Why everyone should have a Mental Health day

When was the last time you took a moment to pause, refresh and regroup? For the majority of people they most likely cannot remember. Every person has mental health, and everybody struggles from time to time, with mental health issues. When you feel like your stress levels have reached their peak, it might be time to take a quick break to reset.

There are many ways you can relax and unwind to ensure you take a rest. It can be difficult when to decide to take a mental health day, but it is very important to avoid burnout and/or increase stress and anxiety.

Take a day

Choosing a day ahead of time is best practice. This allows your time to rearrange your workload and schedule meetings for another time, therefore reducing your stress and allowing you to switch off on your day. However, sometimes you cannot choose when you are going to feel extremely stressed. So if you do wake up like this then take the day to help yourself. There is a growing movement to de-stigmatise mental health in the workplace, so if you feel comfortable you can speak to your work about planning your day. If you do not feel comfortable you are not obliged to tell your employer just book the day off.

Expectation

An effective mental health day can help you destress, reset your perspective, relax and rest. If you know what your day will entail you can plan your expectations of your day. Allowing self care and time to rest can clear your head and allow you to face your problems and stresses with a new outlook.

What do you need to do the most

Your mental health day may be different to your friends or families mental health days. Listen to your body, if you are tired and exhausted from over working and a busy home life, spend your day resting and relaxing. You can spend the day watching TV, having a lay in or a nice nature walk or yoga class. Spend your day on activities that boost your physical and mental wellness.

Have some fun and make changes

If you are feeling bored and need a change scenery invite a friend out to do something fun. Plan at least one fun event—either something you normally love to do and don’t do often enough, or something you’ve always wanted to try.

Reduce Stress

If stress is piling  up and you’re looking for a way to slow down and stop the “noise,” you may want to take a day to restructure things. You cannot eliminate all stress but you can start by trying to reduce some. Start the day by creating a list of all the things that you need to do, this allows you to prioritise what is important and what things can be left if they are causing you stress. This one day may not allow you to get everything done but can make a huge different to your stress levels.

Overall, this mental health day can not only help you take a break to improve how your feeling but it can also allow you to realise if you need to take a longer break to make your mental health a priority.