Dr. Jennifer Hartstein was featured in the article below as Yahoo Life Mental Health contributor and practicing psychologist.
While the boundaries between work and life are blurrier than ever, many are realizing that their busiest days are still disguised as “leisure time” because they’re working from the comfort of their homes. This new work-life balance, or lack thereof, is causing some employees to be hesitant to cash in on their hard-earned vacation days.
Yahoo Life Mental Health Contributor Jen Hartstein shares ways why taking time off is more vital than ever.
“We’re at this very weird time where work and life are blending all the time. And for many we feel like it’s not the right time to take time off,” she explains. “Maybe we aren’t going anywhere, we’re not traveling, so we kind of figure, ‘Why bother?’”
However, it’s important for us to take time off because “the more space we create, the better and more rejuvenated we come back to the office and to work,” she says.
“While our work has been a little bit more flexible, we might actually feel guilty asking [for time off],” Hartstein says. “We might feel like maybe we don’t deserve it, or maybe we’re not owed it, and yet we’re still working harder than ever. For most of us, we’re probably even working more.”
Hartstein says many of us are missing out on the natural breaks that went away with our pre-pandemic routines. The built-in downtime that comes with commuting to your job or socializing with co-workers now turns into time spent working at home.
Hartstein suggests that we try intentionally recreating these moments of downtime that we used to rely on.
