How to take an effective mental health day off
Effectively and purposefully taking a mental health day off is a proactive step towards maintaining a healthy mind and body. This should be a day that is dedicated to self-care, reflection and rejuvenation, thus allowing you to recharge. Making this day off intentional, can help reduce burnout and anxiety, improve your mood and enhance your productivity in all areas of life.
First things first, why? Why do you need this day? What is your body requiring right now in the present? Are you depleted of energy and your body’s asking you to slow down? Or are you stressed and not taking time to put back into yourself?
Determining the why is a key factor in making this an effective day off. Think about it this way, if you are super busy and always on the go, but you want more self-care and so you spend your day busying yourself going to appointments, running to the store, constantly moving, has your body really rested? Sure, you may feel better with some new clothes and a fresh hair do but beyond a material level how is your body feeling? Still tired? Did you stop and take time to rest you mind and your body? This will leave you going back to your day-to-day routine feeling just as tired and energy depleted as you were.
To find the why you just need to be present with your body, the more you can be present the easier it becomes to recognise when it is asking for a time out. To do this I like to just take a moment and breathe, really focus on breathing in from the nose and exhaling from the mouth, you want to induce a state of calm and stillness, taking deep breaths into the core of my being, I then sit there in the stillness of the ever present now, there is nowhere else that you need to be than right here and right now than with your physical body. This is a great opportunity to just notice. Notice how your body is responding right now, how is your breathing, what is lacking for you, is it overworked, is it tired, is it feeling heavy and sluggish? You can reflect in this time, think of your work and other responsibilities, how does your body react energetically to each aspect of your life. This can give you a much clearer indication as to what type of day off you really require. Practicing this often, daily if possible will help you become more in tune with yourself and your body and each time help you gain more clarity on what it is that you are missing.
You can make effective decisions and planning around your day off, determine the amount of time that you require, ask yourself some important questions, e.g.
If you are feeling over worked, and you need a timeout.
Why am I feeling this way, is it work? Relationships? Home life?
What do I require to change this?
Am I benefiting from this behaviour?
What needs to change, do I need to change?
If you are feeling helpless, trapped, and depressed.
What am I unhappy about?
What am I allowing to affect my emotional state?
Can I change this?
How can I change this?
These are just some generic examples, each human will have their own individual and unique experience, leading them towards a different experience altogether. This notion that there is one way of being is limiting, we are unique, and we are all uniquely patterned and programmed, find what works best for you, that is the most correct way.
I would like to share a personal experience of how I found my way, to show that sometimes it takes time and practice, and persistence to find your way.
After some time working successfully as a hairdresser, I started to find myself extremely unhappy. At first, I couldn’t understand why, I was at the top of my game, booked out for months in extremely high demand – shouldn’t I be happy? I started to note the term burnout, and realised oh wow this is how I am feeling right now I am burnt out! This ultimately got me thinking that it’s my job this is the reason I feel the way I do. I told myself I can find myself something more suiting, something that is better for me. I started my search only to find myself feeling unmotivated with every offer or option that came my way. Why? I couldn’t understand why I was feeling this way.
At this time, I had started some coaching and had been familiar with alternative and holistic types of therapy. It was one night when I was exhausted and fed up that I just sat in silence in my living room and realised, it’s not my job I don’t feel fulfilled, I don’t feel like I am where I should be. So, I sat with this feeling what is it that I want? I have no idea! Frustrated I tried to convince myself of all the aspects that I loved about my job and at the top of a very short list was transforming people. In that moment I started to realise that it wasn’t on a material level it was much deeper.
Not long after this revelation I left my job, worked in another industry while I started to study and learn, I underwent coaching and I transformed myself, it was long and at times confronting but the outcome has been amazing, almost four years later I am launching my own coaching business feeling motivated, fresh, and ecstatic with energy, and ready to help others do the same!
Sometimes the answers to our questions are not what we want to hear at the time, but we must hear, and we have those answers within us.