Member Articles

I have taken more mental health days than actual sick days. I have a problem with an overabundance of stress, so I periodically have to take vacation or a mental health day to be able to manage. Just one day makes such a huge difference. I also think it's better for my employer- I schedule mental health days around my job load to make sure that I won't leave anyone hanging too badly. Sick days can't be as well planned.

How lucky you were to have two such good examples, so you could see that this practice doesn't make you lazy or less productive, but instead enables you to be, as you noted, "at the top of your game".

I'm moving from a 9 - 5 self-employment to freelance self-employment, and I am finding it challenging to allow myself mental health days this year, as I have donet in years past. It's the stress of holding down more than one job. (I'm at about one and a quarter right now, and that's only going to go up, until I reach the point where I can step from one career into the next.) I'm fully aware of the irony that I probably need those mental health days MORE now than I did before, but I'm less willing to take them. I will have to work on this.

Wanting to set a good example for my children, I allow each of them to take one day a month from school as a mental health day. They can't have a test or an assignment due that day, but if it's just a regular day, they can let me know and I let them have the day. They don't always take their monthly day, but they know it's always available to them if they need it.

I see this as good parenting!