What is the “right way” to take a mental health day? I've seen a LOT in popular media lately that I'm having kneejerk reactions to as NOPE, but I'm not sure the “old” way to take a mental health day is correct either. So let's discuss.

To back up a bit: we already discussed generational divides in the workplace and the recent NYT story, “38-Year-Olds are Afraid of their 23-Year-Old Employees.” But one quote from the story, I think, deserves its own post:

Ali Kriegsman, 30, co-founder of the retail technology business Bulletin, wasn’t sure, in the past, how to respond when her Gen Z employees insisted on taking days off for menstrual cramps or mental health: “Hey I woke up and I’m not in a good place mentally,” went the typical text message. “I’m not going to come in today.” Instinctively Ms. Kriegsman wanted to applaud their efforts to prioritize well being — but she also knew their paid time off could undercut business.

I had a visceral reaction to reading that. I've felt those emotions myself (overwhelmed, anxious, depressed), but I still feel like that's not the way you take a “mental health day.”

I also saw a Facebook meme that said, “I want us to normalize ‘I cannot work today because I am not in the mental space to engage with others' and that be okay.” Which — yeah! As a person with feelings I totally agree with that. BUT… society (and most businesses) just do not run that way.

In my day (I'm a Xennial born in 1977), if you weren't in the mental space to engage with others, you called in sick with a vague ailment and worked from home that day. If you had to go in because Reasons, you put on your resting bitch face, shut the door to your office if you needed to, and played Solitaire on the computer until you had to do something for real.

It looks like back in 2018, Alison at Ask a Manager would have agreed with me:

With “mental health days” — meaning a day that you take off to relieve stress/avoid burnout or when you just can’t face the world — say that you’re “under the weather” or “a bit ill.” You can’t really call up and say, “I can’t bear the thought of coming into work today,” but you also shouldn’t make up a hacking cough. It's fine to just be vague. (In fact, it’s fine to be vague even when you have an actual sickness like the flu or horrific diarrhea or whatever. Decent managers will accept “I’m sick today and won’t be in” rather than expecting or even wanting a detailed list of your symptoms.)

Just since 2018, though, I feel like there's been a lot of movement in this space, particularly with noteworthy people normalizing the concept of being proactive about you mental health. Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, and other celebrities have recently made headlines for advocating for mental health awareness, for example.

If you think you're going to need a lot of mental health days, it might be worth looking into workplace accommodations, which may be available for “psychiatric disabilities.” (Verywell Mind has a list of those disabilities.) Here's some further reading on it from the U.S. Department of Labor — it lists accommodations (such as sick leave, more breaks), modifications (private offices, room dividers), equipment requests (white noise, organizer programs), job duties (removal of non-essential job duties, division of large assignments into smaller tasks and goals), and management accommodations (positive reinforcement, more frequent meetings, additional forms of communication), etc.

So I guess these are my tips:

The Right Way to Take a Mental Health Day

1. If it's last minute and unplanned, call in sick with a vague ailment (“I'm not feeling well today” works!) and promise to do what you need to from home. (This may mean check your email every 4 hours or so to make sure balls aren't dropped and urgent questions are forwarded to someone else.)
2. If you anticipate that you'll need frequent mental health days, seek accommodations and modifications pursuant to the Department of Labor's list above. (Or, as commenters have noted, just schedule a PTO day off.)

(Obviously, if it's planned vacation or other anticipated leave (e.g., maternity, surgery, etc) then set your out of office email and enjoy whatever time off means for your office — in some offices that still means checking email once a week or so, so know your office.)

Readers, what say you — what is the right way to take a mental health day? If you've taken a mental health day at work, what was your technique? If you manage people, what have you seen others doing that strikes you as the “right way” to take a mental health day?

Stock photo via Stencil.

The post The Right Way to Take a Mental Health Day appeared first on Corporette.com.

This isn't entirely a “beauty Wednesday” feature, but as we head into spring allergy season I thought I'd remind everyone to take very good care of your eyes, particularly if you wear contacts, particularly if you have very dry eyes. You see, I had a serious scare with my eyes because when I first started working at my law firm, I didn't know four things:

1. how dry the office air was
2. how dry my eyes were naturally
3. how much allergies affected my eyes — it never occurred to me to check beneath the lids of my eyes to see all the little raised bumps that allergies put there
4. how surprisingly easy to do serious damage to your eyes if you have the above 3 conditions and are also not taking the best care of your contacts

{related: online eyeglasses for women}

The first year at my law firm, I wore contacts about 90% of the time (contacts I was supposed to wear for 8-12 hours a day and throw away every 2 weeks… neither of which happened), and loved (LOVED) to get home after a long day at the office and rub my eyes for like a minute. Aaaaah – felt so good! When allergy season hit, my lack of knowledge (those damned little bumps!) meant I was done for — unbeknownst to me, I was basically exfoliating my corneas.

It probably didn't help that I was working long hours — 16-18 hour days weren't that uncommon. Over the course of a few weeks, my eyes turned a little pink, then got watery. Then I noticed that my vision was blurry, even if I was just wearing my glasses. (Actually, especially if I was wearing my glasses — so I wore my contacts more.) One day, I met my younger brother for lunch near the office, and he grabbed my shoulders, leaned close to inspect my eyes, and said, “Kat, your eyes look sick. Like, yellow and dull.” I went back to the office and found an eye doctor.

The next day, the ophthalmologist took one look and sent me to a cornea specialist. He looked through his scope, and began drawing what he said was my eyeball — first a big circle, then lots and lots and lots of little circles. He started dotting at the paper, almost making jabbing motions.

“This is what you're doing to your eyes,” he said. I hadn't hit the cornea — yet — but I was very close to rubbing through the layer that protects your cornea. He ordered me to stop wearing all eye makeup, to wear nothing but glasses, to rest my eyes whenever I wasn't using them, and — oh yes — to keep a pretty vigorous, semi-hourly routine of drops, some OTC, some prescribed.

(For years after this I kept using the OTC stuff — Theratears Gel — every night before I went to bed, and highly recommend them to anyone who has dry eyes.) Leaving his office in my eyeglasses, I realized I could barely see the difference between the street and the curb.

Long story short: after about two weeks of this routine, I was back in eye makeup and contacts, and could pack my audiobooks away, but I learned a lifelong lesson: never take your eyes for granted! According to my cornea specialist (who I still see every six months), it took about a year for my eyes to recover completely. I consider myself very, very lucky.

What I Learned about Caring for Dry Eyes

Some major tips I learned from the experience:

1. If your eyes are itchy because of allergies, avoid rubbing your eyes. 

I still remember how much I loved to rub my eyes — but these days if I'm not removing eye-makeup, I'm not touching my eyes.

2. Blink! If you have dry eyes, try to blink more often. 

If you're using a computer frequently you're probably blinking less — there are actually apps you can download to help you remember to blink. Take a break every hour from the computer and try to really focus on blinking more frequently.

3. Be wary of using Visine to get the red out if your eyes are red — at least, not on a daily basis.

If you have a big meeting and want your red eyes (either from allergies, dryness, or whatever reason) to go away, maybe break out the Visine — but it's actually drying to your eyes, which only exacerbates the problem.

I have Very Dry eyes, so I tend to like this overnight gel — but a warning that you do wake up with slightly crusty eyes! (Ooh, I haven't tried their Extra Dry Eye drops.) They do have regular dry eye drops, though; readers have also sung the praises of Systane.

Hat tip to the readers who suggested these Bruder eye compresses — they're so soothing if your eyes are extremely dry.

4. Reconsider wearing daily contacts if you have dry eyes, a dry office, allergies, or all of the above. 

At the very least, get a pair of glasses to keep at the office so you can take your contacts out if you're working late.

{related: the best online glasses for women}

5. Consider getting a humidifier if your office air is dry.

Humidifiers can really help with dry office air — but be careful to clean it regularly — the mold can be even worse for your health. 

6. Follow the directions on your contact use.

While my contact use wasn't egregious (I wasn't sleeping in them, although I did probably wear them for 16 hours, and keep a pair about 4x longer than directed), my eye doctor recommended I wear glasses most of the time after this incident.

I tried rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses for a while, but now I ultimately prefer single-use contacts for dry eyes. (I looked into LASIK for myself, and while my regular doctor thought I could do the procedure, a doctor I saw for a second opinion said he wouldn't chance it, considering how dry my eyes are.)

2021 update: I also haven't found a lash booster serum that works with my dry eyes — if you find one please let me know! (And if you're using one and having trouble with dry eyes… maybe stop that.)

Ladies, have you had any health scares caused by seemingly normal activities? Do you suffer from allergies, dry eyes, or other eye woes?

Admin Note: This post about Kat's experience with dry eyes was originally published on Apr. 4, 2012, but was updated as indicated above.

The post PSA: Tired, Dry Eyes + Allergies = Bad News appeared first on Corporette.com.