By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer
Life be lifing. Everybody’s had days when their responsibilities just seem to be too much.
Whether you call it the need to regroup, rejuvenate, or unplug, sometimes you just have to say “later” to anything and everything that looks like an obligation. Mental health days are a real thing.
After calling in sick, popular mental health day activities include staying in bed, self-pampering, binge watching TV shows, going out to see a movie, and shopping, which many refer to as “retail therapy.”
What do mental health days look like for a mental health provider? The OBSERVER recently asked therapist Bryant Howard, owner of Heart of the Matter Counseling.
“Being able to recognize what’s happening in my own body is very, very important,” Howard says. “It’s about recognizing, ‘OK, what’s going on with my body?’ If it’s stress related, do I need to take a mental health day? Do I need to take a day off to take care of myself mentally?”
Everybody needs time to decompress, Howard says. He’s quite intentional about what he does to help himself deal with stress. If he decides he needs to take a day off, he does. He’ll cancel any scheduled appointments, knowing that to give his best to therapy clients, he has to be at his best.
“Usually I’m going to go do some kind of workout,” Howard says. “Whether it’s going for a walk or going to the gym or whatever the case may be. I’m gonna go and I’m going to do some kind of physical activity. It’s good for your brain, it’s good for your health.
“I’m going to also engage in some kind of self-care activity, right? One of my favorite things to do is to put some headphones on and listen to some music really loud – hip-hop, alternative music.
“I’ll just have what I call a concert of one.”
If he stays at home, he’ll also take care of household tasks.
That is something that helps me,” he says. “That typically helps me to get my mind off of stuff. And it’ll be a clean house at the end.”
He considers that a win-win.
This article is part of the Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow’s special series, “Head Space: Exploring The Mental Health Needs of Today’s Black Men.” The project is being supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and is part of “Healing California,” a yearlong reporting Ethnic Media Collaborative venture with print, online and broadcast outlets across California. The Sacramento OBSERVER is among the collaborative’s inaugural participants.