6 Mental Health Tips Every Data Pro Needs to Know
How are you doing, really?
September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and there’s no better time to do a quick mental health check-in. If you’re feeling the strain, adopting some (or all!) of these tips can help you take some of the pressure off!
Take Screen Breaks
Due to the nature of our careers, professionals who work with data tend to spend a lot of time staring at a screen. On top of increased eye strain, this can also feel incredibly isolating — especially if you don’t work in an open office environment.
By taking 5–10 minutes away from your desk a few times each day, you can help ease your physical tension and boost your productivity! Sometimes all it takes to crack a tough project is just a few minutes to reset.
Be Aware of Your Bandwidth
It’s far too easy to say “yes” to things without being fully aware of your workload when you work in analytics!
Keep a running list of projects and individual tasks, and make sure that you know what you can actually complete during your office hours. If you can’t get the work done in your standard 40-hour work week, it’s time to delegate, say “no”, or ask for an extension.
Work/life balance is extremely important for your mental health, and no one needs the added stress of tight deadlines, missing out on life events, or giving up hours of sleep to finish those extra tasks. If there’s more work than one person can reasonably accomplish, then it’s time for the company to expand or re-prioritize tasks.
Communicate Your Needs & Boundaries
This may be the most important of all of the tips on this list, because this is often the first place that people start making sacrifices that can have a significant negative impact on their mental health.
Being aware of your bandwidth and personal priorities is one thing: it’s another thing entirely to communicate those needs and enforce those boundaries!
We’ve all been there: some fire pops up at work, and it’s expected that everyone will make certain sacrifices in order to prioritize an “emergency” that may or may not actually be urgent or even in our job description.
This is where it’s important to know when to say no!
Some things truly are unavoidable, but if you are consistently the one expected to compromise and give up your time, it’s going to have a negative impact on how you view your employer and yourself.
Use Your PTO
Remember that work/life balance we already talked about? PTO is there to help you maintain it!
It might feel like there’s an expectation for you to not take time off, but it’s a benefit of your job and no one should be getting an award for never taking a day to themselves. Take your sick days. Take your mental health days. Take your vacation time. And definitely take the hours off to be present for family events!
When all is said and done, no one is going to care that you never missed a day of work. But you and your loved ones will remember the things that you were or were not present for.
Practice Desk Yoga
It might sound goofy, but desk yoga really is a thing!
Working at our computers all day creates a lot of tension in the neck and shoulders, and that can build and impact our mental health as well as our physical health. Desk yoga is a great way to release that tension and re-center throughout the day. (It’s also super accessibility friendly!)
For some easy poses, check out the video below and this article:
Make Time for Passion Projects
“Do what you love; you’ll be better at it.” ~ LL Cool J
When you work on something you care about, it shows!
I can’t stress enough how much value there is in working on projects that you enjoy rather than what you think others would want to see or what you’re expected to analyze for work.
Passion projects are a great portfolio booster: they help you stand out and make you visible as an individual instead of just one more application in the stack. They foster conversations with interviewers and peers that lead to personal and professional growth.
But the real reason you should make the time?
Because it’s fun!
And that’s where the real value rests for your well-being.
Final Thoughts
September may be a significant month for mental health awareness, but you should be prioritizing your mental health every day of the year.
By making just a few small adjustments (and maybe even taking baby steps if you struggle with being a people pleaser!), you can have a lasting effect on your overall happiness as well as your career satisfaction.
So…how are you, really?
I hope this article helps you find that answer!
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