Editor's Log

Mental Health Day

A story on the AP wire this week really got my attention because it substantiated what we have teased about in newsrooms for decades.

The article stated: "Feel like you're going crazy? Maybe you need a day off. More than 80 percent of employees admit to taking 'mental health' days from work to recover or recharge, according to a poll conducted by ComPsych Corp., which provides corporate counseling services. Almost a third said family and relationship issues were the cause.

"When asked what would likely cause them to take a breather, 20 percent said it would be stress related to work and 12 percent said they would take time off due to lack of physical energy. Boredom and lack of motivation accounted for 5 percent of those who would take an unplanned day.

"The online survey polled 1,036 employees of ComPsych's company clients."

I think the first time I heard newsroom staffers joke about taking a "mental health" day was back at The Herald-Star newspaper in Steubenville, Ohio. In fact, there was an Army colonel who had a private psychiatric practice across the Ohio River in Weirton, W.Va., who would come to the office semi-frequently and I'd tease about getting a group rate with him for the newsroom gang. We agreed you had to be a little stressed to put up with the endless pressure of daily deadlines and tracking down people and information for stories, while having editors pushing to get the stories done faster so they could assign two or three other stories that needed done ASAP.

At a couple of newspapers since then we've kidded around about taking mental health days when the stress from those daily deadlines and/or special projects would mount. Talking about such a stress-reliever usually was enough to break the tension.