Mental Health Days

I remember the first time the concept of a "mental health day" was introduced to me. It was back in high school and it was the cool thing to do. "I am not coming in tomorrow. I'm taking a mental health day." Subtitle: "I'm not sick but my parents are letting me stay home anyway (Awesome, Dude!!)." Not to say that there weren't some serious mental health issues being dealt with by a number of kids at my school, there were, but, for the most part, that was secondary to the sheer pleasure of playing hooky. Little did we know how smart we actually were. We were 17 year old wellness gurus.

As I sit here in my pjs enjoying a day off and the luxury of doing pretty much nothing I am reminded of those mental health days and how important they actually are. But its tough to actually take them, right? I mean, even if you are blessed with a relaxed work environment and a boss who actually cares whether or not you are too stressed to function, its really hard to just let it all go. I don't know why this is. Maybe its a fear of accepting that everything will work just fine without you (and by you, I mean the general you. not you, the reader, in particular) there, or maybe you don't really think you need it - you're not stressed enough yet - or maybe you think it will be perceived as weakness. I don't know. Maybe its not anything pathological or subconscious. Maybe you just have shit to get done.

The point is, ignore those excuses. Mental health days are good for you. It's good for you to have a day of unplanned hours, a day away from work that isn't a weekend day (because those get used up and overplanned and there just aren't enough of them), a day for catching up on sleep, law and order reruns, emails, toenail clipping, whatever you want! That's the whole point.

So anyway, take a tip from my 17 year old self and my 17 year old friends and do it one of these days. We were smart cookies. And in case you need a reminder, too much stress is bad for you.