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The Benefits of Mental Health Days for Employees
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It’s Monday morning. One of your team members calls in, their voice sounds flat and tired. “I’m not sick,” they say, “I just… I just need a day.” You pause. There’s no doctor’s note, no visible flu, no broken bone. Just someone genuinely asking for space.
And maybe part of you wonders, is this a mental health day? Should I say yes? What if others start doing the same?
Now imagine the alternative: that same employee pushing through, showing up distracted and exhausted. Productivity dips. Mistakes happen. They stop engaging. Eventually, they burn out or leave.
Mental health days aren’t about people getting away with less work. They’re about giving people what they need to do their best work in the long run. As a manager, your response in moments like this can shape your team’s culture more than you realise.
At PMAC, we support businesses across the UK to build healthier, more human workplaces. In this article, we’ll explore how mental health days benefit not just your staff, but your entire organisation.
What is a Mental Health Day & Why is it so Important?
A mental health day is exactly what it sounds like. A day off work to rest, reset, and take care of your mental and emotional wellbeing. It might be used to recover from stress, prevent burnout, process grief, manage anxiety, or simply pause before overwhelm turns into a full-on crisis.
And yet, many employees still feel they need to justify these days with physical symptoms. Why? Because mental health hasn’t always been treated with the same legitimacy as physical health. But our minds and bodies are deeply connected, and when one is struggling, the other follows.
As a manager, understanding and supporting mental health days sends a clear message: it’s okay to need space, and your wellbeing matters here. You don’t need to wait for someone to hit breaking point. Often, just one day can help an employee return feeling more focused, present, and able to do their job well.
When mental health days are built into your culture, not whispered about or hidden, you create a healthier, more human workplace. One where people are more likely to stay, contribute, and excel.
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What Happens When You Ignore Mental Health Days
We’ve all seen it, the employee who keeps showing up but seems miles away. They’re answering emails, attending meetings, hitting deadlines. But beneath the surface, they’re barely holding it together.
This is presenteeism: when people are physically at work but mentally or emotionally drained. And it’s far more costly than it looks.
According to a 2024 Deloitte UK report, poor mental health among employees costs UK employers up to £51 billion per year, a sharp increase from £45 billion in 2019. While absenteeism accounts for part of that figure, presenteeism and staff turnover are the biggest drivers of these rising costs.
When people don’t feel able to take a mental health day, they don’t just magically recover, they often burn out. Productivity drops, mistakes increase, relationships fray, and morale across the team takes a hit. In the long run, you may lose talented people who feel unsupported or overwhelmed.
And it’s not just about high-pressure roles. Studies show that both younger and older employees are increasingly impacted by stress and emotional fatigue—and many don’t feel comfortable being open about it. According to the CIPD’s 2023 Health and Wellbeing at Work report, only 50% of managers feel confident supporting someone with a mental health issue.
By ignoring the need for mental health days, you aren’t saving time or money. In fact, you’re subtly creating the conditions for long-term dysfunction. As a manager, simply acknowledging the need for rest can make all the difference.
How Mental Health Days Benefit Your Business & Your People
Mental health days can quietly transform your culture. When used well, they shift how your team relates to their work, to each other, and to themselves.
1. Reduced Burnout and Absenteeism
Offering mental health days allows employees to recover before stress becomes chronic. This can prevent long-term sickness, anxiety disorders, or depressive episodes that result from ongoing emotional strain.
2. Higher Productivity and Cognitive Clarity
Taking time off to reset helps employees return with renewed concentration and sharper problem-solving skills. They’re less likely to make costly mistakes and more likely to think creatively under pressure.
3. Strengthened Emotional Regulation
Sometimes, a mental health day is the pause someone needs to avoid a regrettable reaction. This could be snapping in a meeting, shutting down in a conflict, or withdrawing from their team. By creating breathing space, you support healthier emotional responses at work.
4. Restored Sense of Self-Worth
Mental health days can send a powerful internal message to the employee: “My needs are valid.” This can interrupt cycles of self-criticism, low confidence, or toxic perfectionism, especially in high-performing individuals who rarely give themselves permission to rest.
5. More Authentic Communication
When mental health days are normalised, your team learns that honesty is welcomed, not punished. This leads to more open conversations about workload, boundaries, and support long before things spiral.
6. Increased Compassion Within Teams
When one employee takes a mental health day, it creates room for others to reflect on their own wellbeing. It can lead to a culture where colleagues check in on each other more often, offer help, or share their own struggles, all of which create psychological safety.
7. Stronger Retention of Neurodivergent Staff
For neurodivergent employees (including those with ADHD, autism, or anxiety-related conditions) occasional mental health days can be a vital coping tool. Recognising this helps retain diverse thinkers and supports equity in your workplace.
8. Prevention of ‘Quiet Quitting’
Unchecked emotional exhaustion often leads to disengagement. Staff might still show up, but with no sense of purpose or loyalty. Mental health days, alongside a broader culture of care, can reignite connection before apathy sets in.
9. Clear Leadership Reputation
How you treat people when they’re struggling says more about your leadership than how you manage performance. Leaders who support mental health days build trust, empathy, and long-term credibility with their teams.
10. Encourages Preventative Self-Care
When your workplace supports mental health days, you help staff take responsibility for their wellbeing before things fall apart. This normalises a proactive mindset where rest, therapy, or reflection aren’t last resorts, but regular parts of staying well. It’s a subtle shift, but one that reduces long-term mental health crises and helps your team become more emotionally resilient over time.
What a Mental Health Day Might Look Like (And What It’s Not)
A mental health day can look very different from person to person, and that’s exactly the point. There’s no “one right way” to take care of your mind.
For one employee, it might mean staying in bed and catching up on sleep. For another, it could involve a long walk, a therapy session, or simply switching off their phone and sitting in silence. Someone else might use the time to manage anxiety, attend a medical appointment, or grieve a personal loss they hadn’t had time to process.
The common thread is these days give people space to pause, breathe, and regulate without the expectation of performance.
What mental health days are not, however, is a way to avoid responsibility, meet deadlines late, or disappear without explanation. When you introduce them thoughtfully and support them with the right culture and boundaries, they don’t lead to misuse. They lead to recovery.
The key is clarity. If your team understands that mental health days are a valid, supported part of how your organisation cares for people, you help take away the shame and secrecy that often surround them.
Policy Tips: How to Introduce Mental Health Days at Work
It’s one thing to believe in mental health days, it’s another to make them work well in your organisation. Without a clear structure, even well-meaning managers may hesitate, and employees might worry they’re “asking too much.”
Here’s how you can create a mental health day policy that’s safe, supportive, and sustainable:
Keep the language simple and human
Avoid vague or overly medical wording. Make it clear that mental health is just as valid a reason for time off as physical illness. Example: “We recognise that mental health is health. If you need time to recover, reset, or seek support, please take a mental health day in the same way you would a sick day.”
Trust your people
Requesting a doctor’s note for a mental health day can feel invalidating and defeats the purpose. Instead, make it easy for staff to be honest. Most people won’t abuse that trust and if they do, it’s a performance issue, not a policy flaw.
Make it part of your sick leave policy, or a standalone option
Some workplaces build mental health days into existing sick leave, while others offer a separate allowance. There’s no single right way. What matters is consistency, clarity, and fairness across teams.
Encourage leaders to model it
If senior staff never take a mental health day, others won’t feel safe doing it either. Normalise this from the top. A team is more likely to care for themselves when they see their manager doing the same.
Ensure confidentiality and dignity
Managers should handle mental health day requests with care. A simple “Thanks for letting me know, take the time you need” can go a long way in making someone feel safe and supported.
Review and adapt based on feedback
Check in after a few months. Are people using the policy? Do they feel safe doing so? Gathering feedback helps you improve the policy and respond to what your team actually needs.
With a thoughtful approach, mental health days become less about a single day off and more about building a culture where people are supported to stay well, all year round.
Supporting Staff After a Mental Health Day
How you support someone after a mental health day can make a positive difference. Returning to work after emotional strain often brings quiet anxiety—about catching up, being judged, or stepping back into what felt overwhelming.
A gentle, thoughtful return-to-work process helps rebuild confidence and creates a sense of safety.
Start with a private, supportive conversation. Ask what they need to feel comfortable. That could be a phased return, lighter workload, or time to access support services. You don’t need all the answers, just curiosity, care, and a willingness to listen.
Ongoing support might include:
- Regular check-ins to see how they’re coping
- Temporary flexibility around deadlines or duties
- Encouragement to use wellbeing resources (like EAPs or mental health first aiders)
- Clear expectations to reduce pressure or confusion
When mental health days are respected and reintegration is handled with kindness, you create a culture where people don’t just return, they recover, re-engage, and feel valued. That’s where real wellbeing thrives.
Tips to Support Yourself on Your Mental Health Day
Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is stop. To step back, breathe, and give yourself the care you’ve been putting off. If you’ve taken a mental health day, you’ve already done something important for your wellbeing. What you do with that time can help your mind truly reset.
Here are a few gentle ways to make your mental health day count:
Give yourself full permission to disconnect: Try not to check emails or work chats. Your brain needs a real break to rest and recover.
Step outside, even briefly: Fresh air, movement, and natural light can ease tension and help clear your head.
Do something that brings you peace: That might be reading, cooking, sketching, or simply sitting quietly. Choose what feels good, not what feels productive.
Look after your body: Eat something nourishing, drink water, or stretch. Small physical shifts can ease mental strain.
Slow your mind: Try deep breathing, a mindfulness app, or just a few minutes of stillness.
Limit passive scrolling: Notice how social media or news affects you and take breaks when needed.
Reach out if things feel heavy: Talk to someone you trust. You don’t need to carry it all alone.
When you take a mental health day, you don’t have to fix everything. You just need to give yourself space to feel human again. Even small acts of care can make a big difference.
Final Thoughts: Rest is a Responsibility, Not a Luxury
At the heart of it, mental health days aren’t just about time off. They’re about trust. They say to your team, “You don’t have to earn your rest. You deserve to be well simply because you’re human.”
And when your workplace sends that message clearly and consistently, something powerful happens. People stop pretending. They start recovering. And they bring more of themselves, their creativity, care, and clarity, to their work.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire system overnight. Sometimes, a simple shift in language, policy, or attitude is enough to spark change. Let your team know it’s safe to take a breath. The return is deeper than productivity, it’s belonging, resilience, and long-term wellbeing.
If you’d like support in shaping a mentally healthy culture in your workplace, our training programmes at PMAC are here to help. Because everyone deserves to feel seen, supported, and safe, especially at work.
Originally published: 17/02/2023
Last updated: 24/06/2025