Highlights | Don’t let your PTO collect dust
- Taking time off is important for physical and mental well-being.
- It can help reduce stress and prevent burnout.
- Having time to recharge also makes you better at your job when you come back to it.
- Whether you want a two-week vacation or a day off here and there, figure out what helps you unplug and relax.
There are a lot of reasons you may struggle to use your vacation time off. Maybe your department is short-staffed or in the middle of a huge project. Maybe your clinic is busier than usual. Or maybe you feel like you’re burdening your colleagues or not doing your best work.
Whatever the cause, and regardless of whether you work from home or on-site, feeling guilty or stressed about taking time off is normal, especially in healthcare, says Marie Cockerham, MN, director of CARE4U Wellbeing & Support at UW Medical Center.
Having worked for nearly two decades as a nurse, plus experiencing her own self-care awakening during the pandemic, Cockerham knows how hard it can be to make caring for yourself a priority — but the effort is more than worthwhile.
“It takes an intentional commitment to give yourself permission to take care of yourself,” she says, “Recognize that if you take care of yourself, that’s going to let you take better care of others, although that can oftentimes feel counterintuitive or difficult.”
So, where should you start? Here are Cockerham’s top tips for using your paid time off benefits.
Taking time off prevents stress
As rewarding as working in healthcare can be, there’s no doubt it can also be stressful, regardless of whether you work with patients. It can be tempting to keep pushing feelings of stress or anxiety or overwhelm away because you don’t have time (or don’t want) to deal with them in the moment.
If this is a short-term coping strategy to, say, get you through a particularly rough day, that’s OK. But if it becomes a long-term coping strategy where you aren’t making time to address your emotions, that can become harmful to your health and well-being.
“Your body remembers those stressors even when your mind doesn’t, and they show up in your body in ways like getting sick or having recurring back pain,” Cockerham explains. “If we’re not choosing to take a break our body will often choose that for us.”
Rather than waiting until your body makes that decision, get ahead of it by planning time off when you feel stress starting to pile up. This doesn’t have to be a full-blown vacation; even a single day off or a break during the workday can make a difference.
Taking time off allows you to recharge
Have a busy month coming up? Even if your schedule is packed with good things, like planning kids’ birthday parties or getting ready for family to stay with you, that doesn’t mean the added time and energy required won’t add up.
Taking time off to allow yourself to recharge during busy times can help you enjoy your planned activities more. It also allows you to make time for anticipatory joy, which can give you a mental health boost.
Recharging also helps you maintain work-life balance, or what Cockerham prefers to call work-life harmony.
“Taking time off means really utilizing the benefits that you work for, and it helps you optimize your own life and health, the things that fill you up outside of work,” she says.
Taking time off helps you work better
To some, the idea that taking time off will actually make you better at your job may seem counterintuitive. But it’s true.
The harsh reality is, if you’re exhausted or overwhelmed, it can affect the quality of your work. If you want to be the best colleague or care provider you can be, that’s going to require taking some time for yourself.
If you don’t, you might notice you’re struggling to make decisions, becoming forgetful or irritated or lacking joy in your work. These are all things that can lead to — or be symptoms of — a stress injury like burnout.
While taking time off might not fix everything, it can be a step in the right direction and help you start to feel better by focusing on something you can control.
How to make your PTO work for you
Cockerham recommends familiarizing yourself with what types of vacation and holiday time off, sick leave and paid, or unpaid and long-term leave are available to you.
“A lot of people who come to me don’t know what their benefits actually mean, and each person’s leave benefits are so different depending on their job classification,” Cockerham explains.
Then, discuss your plans with your manager and request approval for the time off according to your department’s standard procedure.
If you need to take time off for a longer period of time — say to help a family member through medical treatment — make sure to contact human resources and see what your options are.
You may have read articles or been told by well-meaning colleagues or friends that you should take time off in a specific way, but Cockerham doesn’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach.
Instead, she recommends experimenting to see how to take PTO so that it provides the most benefit for you. Does taking a day off each week for a month help you feel refreshed? Or maybe you’d rather save your time for a two-week vacation where you can unplug from everything. If you know you are in a season of more stress, does it make sense to take those few extra vacation days and plan that out so that you stay refreshed? Learn what refreshes you and what doesn’t.
“You can always try something different. If it works, how can you do more of that? If it doesn’t work, what can you try next?” she suggests.
