Is It Time To Legalize Mental Health Days?

Imagine waking up so exhausted that the thought of opening your laptop and checking email seems like the hardest thing you will do today.

After months of working long hours, constant stress to meet deadlines, and dealing with workplace politics, it has all caught up to you. All you want to do is go back to bed and sleep for the next week until the exhaustion passes, and you can focus on what you have to do.

You aren’t physically ill with a fever or the flu; you are just mentally exhausted. Yet when you contact work to call out using your limited sick days, you cite the reason as “flu” because admitting to needing a mental health day seems too shameful.

Why would you take a mental health day if you are capable of handling multiple clients, juggling pending projects, or managing a large team?

But the truth is, to excel in these areas of a job, an employee has to be mentally prepared to handle whatever comes their way.

This silent crisis has spread across all industries. In fact, 1 in 4 US workers report that they wish they could take mental health days but choose not to.

This hesitation is also driven largely by employers, with 63% of employees reporting not having the encouragement to take a mental health day if they need it.

Additionally, only 15% of all US companies offer dedicated mental health days in addition to their standard 2 weeks of PTO. But what would happen if they did receive mental health days?

The question is no longer whether employees need a break, but whether the law should require employers to give it to them.

It is more common than you think

Being mentally exhausted and overworked is a shared experience among the United States workforce. In a culture that normalizes working long hours and multiple jobs, a worker is bound to reach a breaking point when stress manifests itself in physical symptoms.

Chronic fatigue, brain fog, gastrointestinal problems, weight gain, and aches and pains are just some of the many issues that overworked employees face. Couple that with mental exhaustion, and being employed does more harm than good.

Depression and anxiety are also a result of job-related stress and burnout, which causes a significant toll on the economy.

According to the World Health Organization, depression and anxiety drain $1 trillion from the global economy annually.

This cost isn’t due to workers going home early or taking too many sick days. Instead, it is because employees are paid to do a job, but are too mentally checked out to do it well. As a result, a company’s profits can decrease, production may fall from the last quarter, and employers may have to hire new employees if others quit.

Another effect on depression and anxiety in the workplace is the toll that it takes on working conditions. A worker can be more than capable of performing their job, but if they are overworked, underappreciated, or directed by bad management, it can lead to a loss of productivity and damage the workplace culture and morale.

If an employee is depressed or anxious because of a job, employers need to look at the root cause of the problem: themselves. These mental health struggles can be prevented if workers can thrive under positive conditions.

While every job has its positives and negatives, the difference between feeling anxious or depressed and having it severely affect your work comes down to the support from an employer, and that includes providing mental health days to those who need them.

How other nations handle this mandate

Around the world, prioritizing mental health is part of the culture. Nordic countries like Sweden and Norway are considered the happiest in the world. European culture normalizes holidays in August, slower workdays, taking days off, and working shorter hours.

Mental health mandates are largely created based on cultural norms, and unfortunately, the United States is still a nation obsessed with working long hours.

But in other countries, mental health mandates have already been put in place. In 2005, the EU prioritized the need for mental health services, as they are prevalent among individuals and impose a toll on society. This framework is based on the World Health Organization recommendations and has since been implemented in hospitals and communities across Europe.

Over a dozen countries including Australia, France, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, and Canada (Ontario), have created the Right to Disconnect Law, which is designed to protect work-life balance by making it illegal for employers to contact employees past a certain time of day. This creates less stress in the workplace and eliminates the need for emergency mental health days because employees are given time every day to disconnect from work.

The United States has yet to implement similar policies, but we should take a look at the policies implemented by the EU and consider whether they will work in our country. Many workers will likely positively respond to these changes, and it would reduce burnout.

The pros and cons of legalizing mandates

To instill change would have to come at the policy level. While federal mandates may be slow to pass, creating policies at the state or local level can change work-life balance.

If these policies were mandated, it would end the stigma of taking a mental health day and instead normalize it as a basic human right. It would also allow workers to take care of themselves and perform better at work without feeling like they need to lie to employers about why they need the day off.

Employers who add this policy can improve retention among employees. Instead of losing a valuable employee to burnout, employers can support their employees and keep them long-term.

Finally, this change would create equity among the population. All workers, whether they are minimum wage or full-time salaried, would have the benefit of being able to take time off if needed for their mental health.

On the other hand, this change can have its challenges. Regulators would have to come up with a universal definition of a mental health day, which could look different for everyone. If a worker does not meet those requirements, then it won’t be approved.

Additionally, this could impact smaller businesses. Allowing more mental health days could impact the operation of smaller staffed companies and result in lost profit.

But when there are regulations put in place to change the structure of PTO it can encourage employers to evaluate the benefits they offer and change company culture. Furthermore, if there are already laws in place to protect workers, it would normalize mental health days and help prevent new cases of workplace-related anxiety and depression.

It’s not that simple

While implementing these mental health policies would be the solution to productivity and profits, it is easier said than done.

Currently, not everyone can take a mental health day if they need it. Socioeconomic status plays a pivotal role in the attitude toward taking a mental health day, with those of a higher income more open to taking a day off work and reduced stigma, while those of a lower income are not able to afford to take time off, even if they need it.

With all of these factors in mind, it has made providing mental health coverage a controversial topic in the workplace. It is not standardized because of the underlying disparities in the population.

There are too many factors that have to come together to make this change, including budget to pay employees who take time off, breaking stigma, and creating social change. None of this happens overnight and can take a generation or more to become a cultural norm.

Until then, all that can be done is to become more self-aware and recognize that it is okay to take a day to rest and recharge before going back to work. There is no shame in not being able to handle the demands of a job, even if you know you are capable. You can’t show up for your colleagues, patients, or clients if you haven’t shown up for yourself first.