Is It Time to Take a Mental Health Day?

We’re all familiar with the idea of staying home from school or work when we’re under the weather with a cold or a stomach virus. You probably don’t feel well enough to do your best, and if you’re contagious, it’s irresponsible to expose yourself to other people who may catch whatever you have. However, the idea of taking a day specifically to tend to your mental well-being is somewhat less commonplace in the United States – the most overworked country in the world.

Here’s how to tell when it’s time to take a break for your mental health, and why you shouldn’t feel guilty or hesitant to admit when you need to set aside a day or two to manage stress or practice your self-care routine.

How to Tell If You Need a Mental Health Day

Sometimes, life feels overwhelming. Even glancing at the day’s headline news can be exhausting. If this burden becomes too heavy and you are starting to experience the symptoms of burnout, it could be because you haven’t given yourself enough time to do the healthy hobbies that serve as an outlet to keep stress at a minimum.

Chronic stress comes with a whole host of issues, from high blood pressure to headaches. You may be unmotivated and find yourself detaching from responsibilities that used to be engaging for you. If that’s the case, you should schedule a day for self-care activities such as getting a massage or spending time with friends.

Reasons to Take a Mental Health Day

If you want to be healthy, you shouldn’t neglect your mental well-being. Just as you need to build rest days into your physical exercise routine, your mind and spirit need occasional downtime to recover. Listen to what your inner voice is telling you. If you wake up feeling exhausted, use your best judgment and decide when it’s time to take a day off school or work.

It’s OK if you don’t want to go into a high level of detail with co-workers, teachers or classmates about why you took a mental health day. It’s not a stretch of the truth to say you weren’t feeling your best and thought you’d be better off staying home.

Ideas for How to Spend Your Mental Health Day

What should you do with your day off? Anything that helps you feel better and manage stress qualifies as a good mental health day activity, even if it’s something as straightforward as taking a nap. The goal is not to spend the day running errands, doing chores or organizing your email inbox. Instead, focus on activities you find relaxing, whether that’s doing yoga, fitting in an extra session with your therapist or taking a long, hot bath. Allow your brain to unplug and the burdens to lift from your shoulders.

Renewed Focus on Your Health

At first, the idea of taking a day strictly to focus on your mental well-being might seem selfish or overly indulgent. However, by allowing yourself time to unwind and de-stress, you’ll return from your day off with renewed enthusiasm to be a better employee, student, friend or family member. Developing a habit of taking time off when you need it will help create more balance in your daily life.

If you need to seek treatment for health issues such as substance abuse or co-occurring disorders, Hope Academy is here for you. Contact us to learn about our specialized program offerings for young adults.

Sending a Young Person to a Rehab Center

As a parent, you want your child to have all the best opportunities in life. It can be heartbreaking to discover your son or daughter is using drugs or alcohol, but you have options to get them into treatment and encourage them to make a full recovery.

Young adults often lack impulse control and good decision-making skills because their brains are not fully developed until the age of about 25. As a parent, the responsibility to make decisions on your child’s behalf rests with you. If your child is 17 or younger, you can legally have them enter a residential treatment facility without their consent. It may be one of the most difficult decisions you ever have to make, but if substance abuse is endangering your teen’s life, getting them into treatment is the right thing to do.

Is Your Child Addicted?

The first step to helping your child is making sure their problem is indeed addiction. Sending a young person to a rehab facility if they do not have a genuine drug or alcohol misuse disorder can put severe strain on the foundational trust of your relationship with your teenager.

If you suspect your child is abusing drugs or alcohol, make note of warning signs such as:

• Sudden disinterest in school, sports and other previously enjoyable activities
• Acting withdrawn and secretive
• Having a new group of friends
• Ignoring good grooming and hygiene habits
• Staying out late
• Sleeping too much or not at all

Some of these issues can be manifestations of mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety, while others are a normal part of going through adolescence for some teenagers. However, if you see several of these symptoms at the same time, your child may have a drug abuse problem. It can help to familiarize yourself with the abuse symptoms associated with different types of drugs.

When to Consider an Intervention

Though you can put an underage teen into rehab without their approval, it’s a much healthier approach to convince them to make that choice on their own. A family intervention can be a successful way to get loved ones into treatment if they show no inclination of pursuing the option themselves. If you’re worried an intervention may become too emotional, or that your teen will react with hostility, consider hiring a professional interventionist to help you manage the meeting and keep it on track.

Before staging an intervention, it’s essential to find an accredited facility first. You will need to notify the center ahead of time so the staff can be ready to admit your child immediately after they agree to treatment. That way, you minimize the chances that your teen will have a change of heart and refuse to get help. Taking the addicted person to rehab as soon as possible after the intervention is much more effective than waiting to find a treatment center afterward.

Your Family’s Healing Journey Starts Here

At Hope Academy, we provide a residential recovery program designed specifically for young adults who are struggling with drug and alcohol abuse. If you are looking for a qualified treatment center for your son or daughter, we are here to help. We have all the resources available to help people with substance misuse issues manage withdrawal symptoms safely and comfortably before transitioning into the next phases of drug and alcohol treatment. Contact us today to learn more about our California young adult rehab facility and learn if treatment is the right fit for your family.

Mental Health Overlooked in College Transition

News headlines and social media feeds seem to be brimming with studies about how today’s teens are more stressed out and anxious than year’s past – and, yet, mental health is often left off of the college prep checklist, according to a new survey from WebMD, Medscape and JED.

According to the survey, “Preparing for College: The Mental Health Gap,” in the past five years, the majority of healthcare professionals noted a rise in mental health issues among teens: 

• 86% said they have had more anxiety and stress.
• 81% saw more anxiety disorders.
• 70% reported seeing more mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder.

And parents echoed these findings, with 45 percent of those surveyed claiming that their teen had been diagnosed or treated for a mental health issue, learning disorder or substance abuse.

Yet here’s the surprising part: Only 28% of parents of teens with anxiety, stress or a mood disorder considered mental health services while choosing a school.

"If your child is already in therapy, don't assume it's going to go away once they start school,” Cora Collette Breuner, MD, a professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Seattle Children's Hospital and the University of Washington, told WebMD. “Assume the opposite."

College presents what experts call a sort of “perfect storm” for mental health issues. For one, nearly 75 percent of all mental health conditions begin by age 24, and there’s also a significant amount of stress during this time. In other words, the college years are a critical time to understand and talk about mental health with your kid. Even if it doesn’t touch your child, he or she might deal with a roommate who is in emotional distress.

The survey stressed the need for all parents – not just those of kids with issues – to discuss mental health concerns. "It's going to touch your family's life, and certainly your child's life in one way or another," Stephanie Pinder-Amaker, PhD, director of the College Mental Health Program at McLean Hospital, told WebMD. "It does so much to decrease stigma and fear and anxiety just to talk about these issues."

Do You Need Dual-Diagnosis Treatment?
Co-occurring mental health conditions like depression may exist prior to substance abuse, or develop as a side effect of drug and alcohol dependency. At Hope Academy, we conduct a series of tests upon admission to determine if mental illness is complicating substance abuse. Once we gain a comprehensive understanding of each patient’s individual health challenges, our addiction treatment team develops a customized program. To learn more, call 866-930-4673.