Learning to take a break!

What's going on people! I hope you have all have a great weekend and enjoying your day off on Monday, if you are reading from the UK, if not, I hope you are having a good Monday anyway! Today I wanted to talk to you lovely people about taking a break for you, and how important this can actually be for yourself physically and mentally healthy. When I say taking a break, I do even just mean for an 30-60 minutes when you are at work! I wanted to talk about this in my post I done about "Looking after yourself better" But I felt this topic itself goes much deeper than that and wanted to just do a separate post, so let's get into it.

My Experience

For people who have been reading my posts for the past few weeks with anything I post, I always post my own experiences with anything that I discuss and talk about. With regards to taking a break from your own world, I honestly cannot express how important it is for yourself. Within the space of a year and a half, I have had two bad experiences just because I did not take a break for myself in my life. The first time was early 2019 (Which I spoke about in my other post "How therapy saved my life.") I was in such a dark place I felt that investing as much time as I could in work would help keep my head space clear of any negative and dark thoughts I was having. Getting into work and 7am and leaving at 9pm, going home and doing nothing for myself. This only made me weaker physically as I wasn't resting or sleeping well and my mental state was just in pieces, I wasn't doing any activities that I usually would enjoy, it was horrible. This also happened to me early in 2020, just over a month before lockdown was announced. I got back into a bad habit or working too much and not looking after myself, like I have said previously, my work have been amazing regarding my situation, including colleagues, my mangers and Human Resources. I cannot thank them enough! They noticed that I was slipping into a bad space and my manager and HR made a suggestion that I take 3 weeks off work, just for me, no work and to focus on myself. This helped me in so many ways to help get back out of a negative space that I was falling back into. And this is what I mean when I say about taking a break, it is vital for your own health, burning yourself out is an extremely dangerous thing to do!

Breaks are vital to a healthy you!

Many always talk about physical health, like how important it is to do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, but mental health needs this too! (I know exercise can help keep the mind clear but it is not enough in my eyes, more work needs to be done too!) There can be so many different types of breaks you might need, sometimes more than we all realise straight away. It is not always just work related. A couple of examples could be taking a break from people in the sense you need some space just for you for a little while, social media is another huge one that can cause a lot of stress and upset at times, the list goes on, take a moment to ask yourself this now. Do you feel you need a break? and if so, what from? .

Regardless of the type of person you are with regards dealing with kind of situation, it can catch up one anyone and can do a lot more damage if you do not notice the warning signs, everyone has a breaking point so please do not let yourself get to that. As I always say self care is always priority number one for you. If you feel yourself heading in this direction, you need to take time for you, whether that is just relaxing at home, going away for a few days, booking time off work, anything that you know will help you feel refreshed and ready to carry on with a better mindset and feeling more energised for your usual routine whatever that maybe. You know your own body and mind better than anyone else, so always keep watch out for the signs of this!

Sometimes these signs might not be obvious to you, so I have put the below picture in for you, the more signs you have quicker you need to act on taking a break, honestly I have had all the below signs, it really is a horrible feeling and I do not want any of you to go through the same thing. If you are going through any of these right now and are reading this. Please think to yourself what you can do to prevent this and take action ASAP, Your health is the so so vital, not forget that!

I hope this short post can help you all that is struggling when it comes to just taking a break in yourself to help you in the long run. Always remember that you must always make yourself number one, like I say, treat yourself like your own best friend. If anyone is struggling and wants to talk, like I say again, always reach out the friends, family, a professional or even message me, I have so much time for you all, no matter what! Talking about anything that is on your mind will always help you feel better even if it is a slightly, small steps are steps to a bigger and healthy future for you. I wish you all an amazing Monday. Love as always!