Remember when staying home for the day actually meant staying home?
No work emails.
No group chats buzzing every five minutes.
No doomscrolling.
No feeling like you had to document your day online.
If you stayed home from school in the 90s, the day had its own weird little comfort routine.
You’d curl up on the couch under one of those colorful crocheted grandma afghans—the kind that somehow existed in everyone’s house.
Next to you?
Ginger ale and crackers.
Because apparently those were the universal cure for absolutely everything.
Then came the daytime TV schedule.
You’d catch the early-morning cartoons you normally missed because you were getting ready for school.
Eventually The Price Is Right came on, and you’d watch people completely lose their minds over refrigerators, cars and living-room furniture.
Later, you might end up watching Maury, even though you probably had absolutely no business watching Maury at that age.
Maybe you’d doze off on the couch and wake up an hour later to an entirely different show with absolutely no idea what time it was.
There wasn’t an endless feed waiting for you.
You watched whatever happened to be on.
You rested because there really wasn’t much else you were expected to do.
You had your grandma afghan.
Your ginger ale.
Your crackers.
Your daytime TV.
And nowhere you needed to be.
Somewhere along the way, adulthood made resting complicated.
Now even our mental health days can turn into productivity days.
We clean the house. Catch up on emails. Run errands. Scroll social media. Work on side projects. Make appointments. Answer messages.
And by the end of the day, we’re wondering:
Wait… wasn’t I supposed to be resting?
Maybe we need to bring a little 90s sick-day energy into the adult mental health day.
You Don’t Have to Be Physically Sick to Need Rest
Growing up, staying home usually meant you had a fever, stomach bug, sore throat or something else adults could actually see.
Mental exhaustion wasn’t always treated the same way.
But adulthood can be exhausting in ways that aren’t visible.
Sometimes you’re overwhelmed.
Sometimes your social battery is completely drained.
Sometimes you’ve been pushing yourself for weeks and suddenly everything feels like too much.
Sometimes you just need one day where nobody needs anything from you.
A mental health day doesn’t have to mean something is terribly wrong.
It can simply mean:
I need a reset.
And taking that reset before you’re completely burned out can be part of taking care of yourself.
Step One: Pretend It’s 1997 and You’re Unreachable
One of the biggest differences between the 90s and today?
We weren’t reachable 24/7.
If someone called your house and you didn’t answer, they left a message.
That was it.
Nobody wondered why you hadn’t responded within six minutes.
There was no little “Read at 11:42 AM” receipt creating unnecessary guilt.
Your mental health day doesn’t need to become a day of answering notifications from bed.
Put your phone on Do Not Disturb.
Mute the group chat.
Stop checking work email.
You don’t have to disappear completely.
Just give yourself permission to be a little less available.
For a few hours, pretend it’s 1997 and nobody knows where you are until you get home.
Step Two: Find Your Adult Version of the Grandma Afghan
Maybe you still have an actual crocheted afghan.
Even better.
But your “grandma afghan” can really be anything that signals:
I’m done for today.
Your favorite blanket.
Oversized pajamas.
A hoodie.
Fuzzy socks.
Your favorite spot on the couch.
The goal isn’t creating the perfect Instagram-worthy self-care environment.
It’s comfort.
Remember, the original 90s sick-day setup wasn’t aesthetic.
It was a blanket, crackers and whatever happened to be on television.
And somehow it worked.
Step Three: Bring Back Comfort TV
Put on the show you’ve already watched a hundred times.
Watch an old movie.
Find some cartoons.
Put on something nostalgic.
You don’t always need another true-crime documentary, breaking-news update, TikTok rabbit hole or show that requires you to remember seventeen characters and three timelines.
Sometimes your brain just wants something familiar.
There’s something comforting about knowing what’s going to happen next.
Bonus points if you can recreate that strange 90s daytime-TV feeling.
Cartoons in the morning.
A game show around lunchtime.
A ridiculous talk show in the afternoon.
No algorithm required.
Step Four: Eat the Easy Food
Your mental health day does not require a Pinterest-worthy lunch.
Make the sandwich.
Heat up the soup.
Pour the cereal.
Grab your favorite snack.
And if ginger ale and crackers still make you feel weirdly comforted?
Go for it.
Sometimes the foods we associate with being cared for as kids still feel comforting as adults.
We’re not filming a “What I Eat During My Perfect Self-Care Day” video.
We’re resting.
Step Five: Be Bored
This one might be the hardest.
Don’t immediately fill every empty moment.
Sit outside.
Stare out the window.
Flip through a magazine.
Doodle.
Listen to an entire album without doing anything else.
Lie on your bed and stare at the ceiling.
Remember doing that?
We used to experience boredom without immediately reaching for a device.
And boredom wasn’t always bad.
Sometimes boredom gave our brains room to wander, imagine, create, daydream and decompress.
You don’t need to optimize every minute of your mental health day.
Step Six: Do Something Your 90s Kid Self Would Have Loved
What did you do when you had nowhere to be?
Color.
Draw.
Play a video game.
Do a puzzle.
Make something.
Read.
Listen to music.
Rearrange your room.
Go outside.
Write in a journal.
Take pictures just because something looked cool.
The goal isn’t accomplishing something.
The goal is doing something because you actually enjoy it.
There’s a difference.
Step Seven: Take the Nap
Yes.
The nap.
The one you keep telling yourself you’re too busy to take.
You don’t have to earn it.
You don’t need to finish three chores first.
You don’t need to wait until you’re completely exhausted.
Close the curtains.
Grab the grandma afghan.
Put some mindless television on in the background.
And let yourself sleep.
90s kids spent years fighting naps.
Now we’re adults realizing naps were one of childhood’s greatest luxuries.
We owe preschool teachers an apology.
Step Eight: Don’t Turn Self-Care Into Another Assignment
This is where modern self-care sometimes loses me.
Drink eight glasses of water.
Journal for 20 minutes.
Meditate.
Exercise.
Meal prep.
Clean your room.
Take a bath.
Do skincare.
Practice gratitude.
Go for a walk.
Read ten pages.
Suddenly your relaxing day has a checklist.
That’s not relaxing.
You don’t have to perform self-care correctly.
If journaling sounds good, journal.
If taking a walk sounds good, walk.
If lying under a blanket watching movies sounds good, do that.
Your mental health day doesn’t need to look impressive.
It just needs to give you what you need.
Step Nine: Let Yourself Be Unproductive
This might be the most important part.
You are allowed to have a day where nothing gets accomplished.
The laundry can wait.
The side hustle can wait.
The blog post can wait.
The notifications can wait.
The world probably won’t collapse because you spent an afternoon watching comfort movies and eating snacks.
We spend so much of adulthood measuring our days by productivity.
How much did I finish?
How many things did I check off?
Did I exercise?
Did I work toward my goals?
Did I make enough money?
Did I waste today?
But rest isn’t automatically a wasted day.
Sometimes rest is exactly what makes tomorrow feel more manageable.
Your 90s-Inspired Mental Health Day
Here’s your unofficial plan.
Wake up without immediately checking your phone.
Put on your comfiest clothes.
Grab your favorite blanket.
Make an easy breakfast.
Watch some cartoons.
Put your phone on Do Not Disturb.
Drink some ginger ale if you’re feeling nostalgic.
Grab some crackers or another childhood comfort snack.
Watch an old game show, sitcom or movie.
Take a nap.
Listen to an album you loved growing up.
Color, doodle, read or play a game.
Go outside and sit for a while.
Order pizza or make an easy dinner.
Watch another comfort movie.
Go to bed without asking yourself whether you were “productive enough.”
That’s it.
No 14-step wellness routine required.
Maybe We Need to Rest Like It’s 1999
The world is louder now.
We’re constantly connected.
There’s always another notification, headline, video, message, email or piece of content waiting for us.
And sometimes we forget that we aren’t supposed to consume information every waking second.
90s kids grew up with natural pauses.
Commercial breaks.
Dial-up internet.
Phones attached to walls.
Stores that actually closed.
TV shows that weren’t available whenever we wanted them.
Waiting was simply part of life.
Maybe that’s part of what we’re craving when we feel nostalgic.
Not necessarily the decade itself.
Maybe we’re craving the slowness.
The permission to be unavailable.
The ability to sit around without feeling like we should be doing something else.
So the next time you need a mental health day, try taking one like a 90s kid.
Put the phone down.
Put on an old movie.
Grab a snack.
Take the nap.
Be bored.
Do something completely pointless simply because it makes you happy.
And if you really want the authentic experience?
Find a grandma afghan, pour yourself some ginger ale, grab a sleeve of crackers and put on some daytime TV.
For one day, stop trying to keep up with everything.
The internet will still be there tomorrow.
Welcome back to The 90s Kid Guide—where sometimes the best self-care advice is remembering how we lived before everything demanded our attention.