{"id":16975,"date":"2023-10-11T01:37:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T01:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/tired-of-burnout-black-people-embrace-mental-health-days\/"},"modified":"2023-10-11T01:37:32","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T01:37:32","slug":"tired-of-burnout-black-people-embrace-mental-health-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=16975","title":{"rendered":"Tired of burnout, Black People Embrace Mental Health Days"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In a public social media post, Washington, DC – based executive coach Olu Burrell announced – on World Mental Health Day – his intention to take a full mental health week.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next few days, I\u2019m taking some time for self-care,\u201d Burrell, who is 43, wrote. \u201cI\u2019m checking into a local black-owned hotel to get away as I\u2019ve been burning the candle at both ends (and sometimes in the middle) for so long that I know it\u2019s time for me to unplug for a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not alone. While many high-achieving Black professionals have overworking to thank for some degree of their success, they\u2019re no longer willing to sacrifice their mental health in order to achieve.<\/p>\n

Whether publicly posting as Burrell did, making an explicit request at work, or discreetly implying to close friends and family only, more Black professionals are taking the time off they need.<\/p>\n

Since the pandemic, they\u2019ve gotten more serious about preserving their mental health \u2014 whether employers support it or not.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019re being more open about it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve taken [mental health days] throughout my career,\u201d said Christen McCluney, a 42-year-old strategic communications leader in the Washington, DC area. \u201cBut [I] have recently started to reprioritize [taking them] when I realized I wasn\u2019t taking leave like I used to because I was working from home\/hybrid,\u201d she shared.<\/p>\n

McCluney said that since COVID, she\u2019s become more attuned to her body and listens when it tells her it\u2019s time to rest. She\u2019s taken at least one mental health day in the past year when she felt burnt out and overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

Mecca Gamble McConnell, 35, said mental health days are new for her, but she\u2019s leaned on them since stresses began to mount for her in recent years. The Atlanta-based photographer and creative director said she\u2019d heard of mental health days prior to the pandemic but never took them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would feel ashamed that I couldn\u2019t power through,\u201dshe shared.<\/p>\n

Like Burrell, McConnell was raised to \u2018work hard\u2019 and \u2018continue on\u2019 regardless of how she was internally feeling.<\/p>\n

But since the pandemic, she\u2019s changed her tune. Now, if she needs to take a mental health day she does, and she has new therapeutic tools to care for herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I journal, pray, and sit in meditation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Instead of waiting for burnout to strike, professionals like Amira Barger are going all in by taking mental health days as a preventative measure.<\/p>\n

Barger, a writer and agency executive based in San Francisco, says she anticipates the regular need for a mental health day and builds in the time. For her, it\u2019s a priority, not an afterthought.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, I find a Monday once a month to extend my weekend and have a mental health day,\u201d Barger said.<\/p>\n

She started her \u201cmental health Monday\u201d practice in 2019 right before the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was traveling weekly for work on a plane and needed to ground myself in a practice as an anxious flyer,\u201d she said. \u201cI also wanted to \u2018spend down my PTO\u2019 and ensure that the days I earned were spent and not \u201cgifted\u201d back to the company if you will. Too many professionals miss using their PTO and I wanted to end each year with a zero PTO balance. Mostly to force myself to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barger says she uses the monthly Mondays to take a nap or to visit a national park near water. Her favorite is Point Reyes National Park in Northern California about an hour from her home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in nature is very healing and forces me to disconnect from screens,\u201d she said. \u201cI definitely recommend it to other Black professionals especially. Our labor is too often extracted and we need a regular practice to ensure we are taking care of us before we take care of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven M. Hughes, 36, has found a similar rhythm for rest. When his work picked up significantly in March of this year, the Atlanta-based financial therapist and account executive listened to his sister who had encouraged him to take some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sister is a huge advocate for mental health,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s always telling me to take more days off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes says he was \u201cswimming in opportunities\u201d but felt overwhelmed with all the things he needed to do for those opportunities to land the way he wanted them to.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo keep myself from drowning in opportunity I took a week off of work,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

Like many high-achieving African-American professionals, Hughes used to believe in working twice as hard to obtain his goals, which meant taking on more work and not taking time off for his mental health.<\/p>\n

But that perspective has changed in the past few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the pandemic, I\u2019ve taken a different approach,\u201d he said. \u201cBefore I focused on a ton of activity and action. Now I focus first on how I can be my best self and show up at the very top of my capabilities to get the best results. I\u2019ve found that those results are most predictable when I\u2019m not overwhelmed, stressed, etc. Mental health days have allowed me to show up better at work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The week he took off earlier this year was a game-changer that benefited more than his mindset. Since incorporating periodic mental health days into his schedule this year, he says he\u2019s earned more money than he\u2019s ever earned before.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I take a week off every quarter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rest and self-care are easy to forget given the pace of modern life and all its demands. Some people feel shame or guilt for taking time out. But by sharing openly on social media, Black professionals are serving as online accountability partners \u2014 normalizing the act of caring for themselves, and reminding one another to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we get to so busy with life that we forget the importance of taking a moment for self,\u201d added McCluney. \u201cI saw a [social media] thread from a friend that asked if anyone else was feeling exhausted, and it was full of mainly Black professional women saying yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burrell, who posted on social media about his upcoming mental health break, said he did so publicly and intentionally because he feels that men \u2014 especially Black men \u2014 don\u2019t take the time to recharge in meaningful and impactful ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at first you chalk it up to life life-ing, but then you understand that \u2018working smarter, not harder\u2019 can be applied to resting as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But he acknowledges he didn\u2019t see many well-rested men when he was growing up. The exhaustion was all around him, which is one reason he\u2019s doing something different in hopes of breaking that cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Black man I knew was tired all the time, from what they carried both inside and <\/em>outside.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a public social media post, Washington, DC – based executive coach Olu Burrell announced – on World Mental Health Day – his intention to take a full mental health week. \u201cOver the next few days, I\u2019m taking some time for self-care,\u201d Burrell, who is 43, wrote. \u201cI\u2019m checking into a local black-owned hotel to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leadership"},"yoast_head":"\nTired of burnout, Black People Embrace Mental Health Days | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a public social media post, Washington, DC - based executive coach Olu Burrell announced - on World Mental Health Day - his intention to take a full\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=16975\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tired of burnout, Black People Embrace Mental Health Days | Brandiary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a public social media post, Washington, DC - 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