For many of us freelancers and bloggers it can be difficult to protect our mental health from the negativity and arguments on social media. You see, we have to work on social media as part of our job! This means that we’re constantly thrown into Facebook where the newsfeed pops up there for you to see what everyone’s arguing about today.

While on any social media platform these days, it’s challenging to keep your eyes from reading negativity. Sadly, it’s getting worse as each day goes on. This makes it more difficult for people in the social media industry to protect themselves from the horrible results of being shown negativity regularly.

Today I’m sharing some of my own tips and tricks to help you protect your mental health while working on social media. As with most “solutions”, this isn’t a one size fits all blog post, but I’m confident it will help lead you in a positive direction.

5 Tips to Protect your Mental Your Mental Health

Detox Every So Often

Make sure you’re taking the time to just shut down social media for a couple of days a week. You must find a balance between protecting your mental health and getting work done. Thankfully, most social media platforms have a way to schedule content so that you can take a day or two to schedule everything. This will provide you the time necessary to detox from social media every weekend, or a couple of times per week.

Mute Push Notifications

Since you have to work on social media during your work at home days, you must do as little as possible while on there. This means you need to mute your push notifications during your workday, and after work hours. It’s simply not healthy to feel the constant need to check someone’s reply, tag, or conversation each time a notification pops up. Mute your push notifications whenever possible and be certain to keep push notifications muted when you’ve “signed off” from work hours.

Monitor Time Spent

My oldest will share her time spent on certain apps and her cell phone from time to time. It’s a fun conversation to have with a child who, much like me enjoys growing as an individual and monitor what she may be wasting her time on. You must keep a close eye on how much time you’re spending on social media for work and personal reasons. Try to limit your exposure with social media by only using it for work when necessary, and perhaps not using it for personal more than once a week.

Take Weekends Off

I used to be that workaholic that felt I had to keep busy working and always be doing something productive. Perhaps having two young boys who barely slept and had more needs than my firstborn crated my hyperactive mode. Being busy constantly isn’t healthy for anyone, trust me! My blood pressure starting creeping back up because I fell back into the ‘workaholic mode’, so I opted to take weekends off. I’ve said NO to people who need help more often, even though I want to help them, I have to put myself and my family first. Taking weekends off and saying no to extra work hours has been a very positive decision and I highly recommend others follow suit.

Remove and Block, or Mute

Lastly, since you spend so much time on social media for work you must remove and block anyone who leaves unnecessary rude comments. Some of the horrible name-calling I’ve seen among “professionals” lately has turned my stomach! There’s no need to have this type of commentary in your feed. Don’t feel bad blocking a mutual friend simply because their toxic commentary on your mutual friends’ posts happens to impact your mental health. You need to remove, mute, and/or block anyone on social media that makes you feel sad, anxious, or fearful so that you maintain healthy boundaries during work hours.

In conclusion, protecting your mental health is all about being fully aware of what’s dragging you down. We need to spend more quality time focused on the people under our roof when we’re not working. Your family should be the ultimate priority and prize for the ending to every workday.

Do your best to consider my tips and tricks so that you can have more time to focus on what truly matters in your own life without having some sort of mental breakdown due to anxiety and depression from too much exposure to negativity.

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