How to Take a Mental Health Day From Your Job

How to Take a Mental Health Day From Your Job
Illustration: Angelica Alzona

Taking time away from work when you’ve got the flu or a sprained ankle is not only expected, but encouraged. But mental health issues sometimes require time off, too.

Employers don’t always treat mental and physical health the same way, but taking care of yourself should be a priority for both you and your boss. Whether you’re in customer-service, communications, business, or teaching, your work quality is totally tied to your mental state. And while physical jobs like restaurant work, modeling, nursing, and agriculture are more explicitly dependent on manual labor, they also require plenty of mental work too.

In short: No matter the work, everyone needs a mental-health day off sometimes. But since the employment laws in the United States haven’t yet caught up with reality, here’s how to navigate the confusing messages we receive about health and the workplace.

“If the thought of going to work fills you with dread, and when you’re there you can’t focus, take some time away.”

How to Know You Need a Mental Health Day NOW

Meeting challenges and disappointments head-on is part of building personal resilience, so having a bad day at work doesn’t mean you should take the rest of the week off. But you should consider taking a mental health day:

If your mental state is endangering yourself, the people you work with, or your clients or customers. A depressed, distracted pilot should not be flying a plane, and an overtired child-care worker shouldn’t be in charge of young kids. I wouldn’t want a burnt-out doctor performing surgery on me—would you? Ditto an angry driver getting behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler. If you’re so stressed you can’t focus. “If the thought of going to work fills you with dread, and when you’re there you can’t focus, take some time away,” advises Sherry Amatenstein, a Manhattan-based therapist and editor of the anthology, “How Does That Make You Feel?: True Confessions from Both Sides of the Therapy Couch.” She says that if you’re going through a major personal crisis—a bad breakup, or a death in the family—that can also be a time to take time off to care for yourself. “Ask yourself: What’s causing these intense feelings? Is this an ongoing thing? Or temporary? Listen to what’s going on inside,” Amatenstein says.If you fantasize about quitting. Strong emotions can be a warning about a problematic workplace environment. Time off helps you put the issues in perspective, and make a calm, rational decision about whether it’s best to start looking for a new job, or maybe have a conversation with your boss about problems you’ve been having with a coworker. It can be hard to know what the smartest course of action is in the middle of a workday when you’re frustrated and angry. A mental-health day can help you figure that out so you don’t make a rash decision.
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