Mental Health Matters

Linked – For Your Mental Health, Vacation is Not Always the Right Answer

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

Shubham makes a pretty important point about taking a vacation. Sometimes a break can do wonders, but other times it’s just a break away from the work that is contributing to our mental health issues.

“But taking them with the expectation that it will solve your mental health problems is just the wrong way to go about it. And you’re bound to be disappointed. At best, it will provide a temporary relief.”

If you feel burned out a break can help. If you’re feeling stressed some exercise or yoga can help too. But if that’s all the workplace can offer, it’s not going to solve the problem. Taking a long weekend only to return to a job that will now require you to do your normal 45-50 hours of work in 3 days instead of 5 is not a fix. Working all weekend so you can take a three-day weekend next week, is not a sustainable solution.

If your people wind up more stressed because they took a break, you’re doing something wrong. Adding in a lunchtime yoga session or even offering more PTO isn’t going to help. This is a systemic problem. It requires systemic change. Are you willing to do that or are you OK with significant turnover every year? Because we know that younger workers are looking for something different:

76% of Millennials and Gen Zs want to be their own boss—and America will become a freelance-majority workforce in 2027

Why would they rather go to work for themselves and deal with all of that stress? Because the current workplace is falling short of giving them what they want. They want flexibility, they want to do what’s right for their own mental health, and they want to not spend their every waking day wondering when the next layoff is coming.

Can you blame them? When the system is harming our mental health, quick fixes aren’t going to cut it. People are taking their care into their own hands and making choices based on that, not on what the company wants. They no longer trust those companies to do right by them. None of us should.

https://shubhamjain.co/2023/05/17/for-your-mental-health-vacation-is-not-the-answer/

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