Why don't we take more mental health days?
Am I the only one having all the feelings — all in the same day some days? They say it’s important to give yourself permission to feel all the feels, but that feels like a lot.
So, I took a mental health day last week, and it was magnificent. Laundry got done, dishes got washed, stuff got stress cleaned. I slept in, hit the grocery store, lounged on the sofa, watched some Netflix. I even washed my hair.
It was a day I had planned to take off long before any of this COVID-19 stuff happened since it fell right before Easter and during Passover, and it would allow me to get everything ready for family celebrations. Things changed, but it still seemed like an excellent idea to give myself a day to (try to) decompress.
Or watch movies.
Or ugly cry.
I had options.
A woman I know said she wasn’t taking any vacation time during our work from home coronavirus survival time. To her, it feels like a waste when she’s already at home. To me, now is the perfect time to take a vacation from our day-to-day — because if you can’t take a little time for yourself during a global pandemic, when can you?
After my day off, I felt like a new woman. And I definitely recommend doing what you need to do (now more than ever) to protect your psyche when you need to.
So, why don’t we?
According to the World Health Organization, something like 450 million people on Earth suffer from mental health issues — roughly 6.5% of humans — and that puts them among the leading causes of health problems and disability worldwide. In the US, the issue is more pronounced with 19.1% (47.6 million people) of adults experiencing mental illness in 2018.
That’s one in 5 adults.
And adult women are more likely than adult men to have a mental illness: 24% of women versus 15.6% of men.
With numbers like these, why are we so uncomfortable saying we need a day or two to care for our minds and emotions? We don’t hesitate to take a day off to take care of a sore throat or diarrhea (or a sick kid with either), but it’s still taboo to call out “profoundly depressed.”
Or just really sad.
Or just over it all.
In the US:
47.6 million people have a mental illness.
34.2 million people have diabetes.
282 million people have heart disease.
1.8 millions people will be diagnosed with cancer this year.
Treating any and all of these should be easier.
But the harsh reality is that nearly 25% of US adults with a mental illness also had no insurance coverage in 2018. And 60% of US counties don’t have a single practicing psychiatrist. Is the fact that we can’t easily find help the reason we aren’t taking time to help heal our minds?
Or is it societal stigma? That, to be successful, we need to be seen as mentally strong or able to tough it out when the going gets extra tough? Isn’t taking time for yourself the perfect representation of how strong you are by knowing you need some time to deal with your emotional and mental health?
I don’t have the answers. I’m not a mental health professional, and I make no bones about not knowing how to do this well for myself all the time. But, saying I needed and then taking a mental health day — a day purely to keep myself sane in insane times — was the best salve for my currently troubled mind I could have asked for.
