A moment of respite for our mental health

I’ve been thinking a lot about mental health lately, with May being Mental Health Awareness month.

Personally, I feel incredibly privileged and lucky. My family is safe and healthy. I work in a wonderfully supportive company and with an amazingly committed team. And yet, I can’t seem to shake the constant underlying anxiety. From time to time, I wrestle with sleeplessness, demotivation, dejection, anxiety, and irritation. Although I advise others to set boundaries, my waking time is a blur of zooms and slacks at all hours. I find that COVID has somehow thrown my normal routine out the door, and made me forget (or not care for?) my normal rules. I don’t take enough breaks and stare at my zoom screen until I’m squinting through my headache. I don’t exercise enough. I drink too much coffee. I over-communicate online but feel under-connected and emotionally malnourished. My story, however, isn’t unique and I know that among the lucky ones.

With the terrifying mix of health anxieties, family worries, homeschooling, isolation, economic uncertainties, job losses, and role changes, suddenly, it’s hard to see how anyone’s keeping things straight at all. We all need to take a moment, step back, and recharge—myself included!

The topic of mental wellness, most specifically in the form of burnout, is a very real one at Snyk.

In a global pandemic like this, where does an employer’s responsibility start or end? How much can we do, even if we wanted to? What we know for sure is that we all need a moment to recharge. To just shut down, and step away from our daily pressures and digital interfaces.

And so, at Snyk, we’ll be shutting the company down for a Mental Health Day this week—for a moment, however brief, of disconnection and respite. We, of course, have mental health initiatives as well, like our generous vacation time, mental wellness webinars, yoga, and subscription plans for Headspace. But right here, right now, it’s time to step back and give ourselves a moment of care for our mental health.