Mental health is the foundation that students perform and build upon. Mental burn out, famously coined as “senioritis” by young adults, is a focal point of many high school careers.
Mental burnout is a state of extreme mental, emotional and physical exhaustion from prolonged excessive stress. Often deriving from work or other commitments it creates a demanding situation to work through.
Personally, I have wrestled with burnout repeatedly; however, the solution I have found to work are mental health days. These are days when students take off from school specifically to focus on their emotional and psychological well-being.
Every student has varying ways of balancing workloads along with stress. Setting up a blanket system to aid and uplift young adults would be a monumental step in the right direction. A well-used mental health day could save a student from facing burnout and falling behind just as it has done for me.
When I am feeling overwhelmed beyond just a few overdue assignments and sensing impending doom, I use a mental health day. To take a day to focus on assignments and make sure I am in a correct headspace to continue the week.
I would rather take a day to gather all my thoughts and create a good mental foundation then keep pushing and eventually crash in the middle of a stressful time.
However, a concern with mental health days is the idea of exploiting them for a free day off. Yes, a student may use a mental health day as just a “free day” but in a way that is their mental health day.
Complaints from young adults across the country are that they are not heard or acknowledged and there are no systems in place to aid them mentally. Mental health days would be a direct response to these concerns.
If they were to be implemented, I would like to see them act like personal days at a job. Good grades and attendance would be rewarded with additional mental health days as an incentive to ward off exploitation of the system and give students something to work towards.
Mental health days are a system I am grateful was permitted in my high school career by my parents, I believe they could help students around the country.
