Mental health is not given as much attention as physical health, whereas both play an equally important role in the functioning of your daily life. When the mental health issues are pushed under the mattress and are ignored momentarily, it creates a huge stack of problems later on which get hard to ignore. It takes a toll on your brain and it paralyzes your rational thinking capacity. You somehow start dragging yourself through your work but your qualitative outcome takes a downslide.
You might think that your reason for asking for leave from your workplace will be stigmatized by your colleagues and employer but that is not the case, there are legitimate rights available for the employees to utilize it for their physical and mental well-being.
Ignorance of mental health conditions may inevitably give rise to several chronic illnesses and severe issues like high-functioning depression, panic attacks, anxiety disorder, and etcetera. So, it is a must to resort to mental wellness retreats after seeking mental health getaway from your employer.
Half of the Americans in the corporate world have been victims of “Stress and Anxiety disorders”, alongside they have a justifiable fear of witnessing discrimination and serious repercussions.
Your suffering will bring about dangerous results and it will be prolonged if you do not address depression treatment retreats without any unnecessary delay.
WHEN SHOULD YOU TAKE A MENTAL HEALTH GATEWAY FROM YOUR WORKPLACE?
The significance of recognizing the red-flag on time is considerable. Whether you need a depression treatment retreat or anxiety retreat, whatever the reason may be, you should be transparent with your problem.
You should immediately look forward to mental health getaway when-
• Stress starts weighing upon you every time you enter into your work premises and you feel overwhelmed with the pending tasks that are lying ahead of you.
• You carry your stress and anxiety around your personal spaces as well. Continuous irritability and panic are evident in your actions and behavior.
• Despite working on your mental health, you don’t feel any difference, rather, the conditions are worsening.
• You are jet-lagged and are unable to concentrate on your work, your productivity in the work is lagging far behind.
These signs are enough for you to consider asking for medical leave for depression from your employer.
WAYS TO PRIORITISE YOUR HEALTH ALONG WITH MANAGING PROFESSIONALISM:
It may appear to you that requesting leave for depression from your professional arena can be regarded as unprofessional. After all, commonly in the corporate-sectors, the mental health reasons are not good enough to consider a leave from work. But this can be avoided by following proper professional steps:
• Timely and patiently inform the Human Resource department of your company about your decision of taking leave with all the details possible.
• Ask your doctor to bring validated documentation of your diagnosis and submit it to the disability insurance provider of your company The disability insurance provider is entitled to make recommendations on the number of days you can take leave after assessing the reports on your mental health condition.
TYPES OF EMPLOYEE WELLNESS PROGRAM AND POLICIES AVAILABLE:
There are some mandatory programs followed by every company for safeguarding the wellness of the employees and those policies include-
• American with Disabilities Act (ADA):
Under ADA, discrimination against an employee with a mental health problem is illegitimate. This Act covers issues like bipolar disorder, severe clinical depression, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
• U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC):
According to EEOC, people who are clinically diagnosed with depression, PTSD, and other mental health problems are subjected to workplace privacy and reasonable workplace accommodations that contribute to the better performance and security of the job during and after the recovery period.”
• Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA):
FMLA is only applicable to companies that have 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius of the workplace. As per its eligibility criteria – the employees must have worked for the company for over a year for at least 1250 hours in the past 13 months.
In cases of urgency, you must visit the HR department and tell them that you would require an absence granted by FMLA.
WHAT TO DO IN THE RECOVERY PERIOD?
During this period when you take a medical leave from your work, you need to utilize your time productively according to the recommendations of your therapist, so that you can have an effective comeback at your workplace at the earliest.
Follow these tricks to get back on track:
1) Isolate yourself from work:
Do not get indulged in any work-related activity during this leave, restrict yourself from having any look into your emails or phone calls from your office.
2) Identify the main reason behind this burnout:
In your anxiety retreat and depression teatment retreats, you will eventually discover the main cause behind the deterioration of your mental condition. It can be anything including, workload, disturbed sleep patterns, the imbalance between work and life, and so on.
3) Focus on maintaining a healthy body:
Your mental and physical health coexist. To have a full-fledged recovery engage yourself in regular physical exercises like yoga and aerobics and start consuming nutritious food and don’t forget to stay hydrated.
4) Follow-up with your therapist:
Stress has a high chance to come back time and again if not kept a check on it properly, so it is important to plan a regular or periodical visit at your mental wellness retreats and talk to your therapist honestly.
It may turn out difficult for you to get back to work after a long medical leave for depression, even if you are unable to start working with full force, you will learn handling the situations gradually. It will take time to again acclimatize yourself into your workplace culture.
You can push yourself little by little to again get into a healthy routine. Slowly try to reunite with your workforce and social circle.
The approach for leave for mental health reasons might feel offbeat but it will be worth it.