How To Take Care of Your Mental Health While in a Production
Posted on: May 22, 2025
Photo Credit: DGLimages / iStockFor most of us, mental health is a top priority, because we understand the impact it can have on our daily lives. Taking care of our well-being is essential to maintaining a healthy work/life balance. However, for an actor, life can be hectic. Filming can be during unsociable hours, and emotional prep for a role can harm our mental health.
Our capability to withstand emotional stress can increase to try and facilitate the self-imposed expectations of being a “good actor.” Working in creative fields can encourage actors to be in a state of constant gratitude, and consequently ignore the signs of exhaustion and distress.
By ensuring a well-prepared routine during production, you can ensure that your well-being isn’t being compromised for the sake of the work. Prioritizing non-negotiables, like healthy nutrition, a sleep schedule and carving out downtime will enable you to take care of yourself, even under strenuous circumstances.
Here’s some advice for how to take care of your mental health while in a production.
Insights: Quick Tips for Mental Health Check-ins
- Take time to eat, hydrate and create dedicated time away from devices.
- Ensure you can get at least 8 hours of sleep.
- Understand that time outside of production and rehearsals should leave you feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.
Understanding the Work and Preparing Ahead
Arrange the priorities for your mental well-being while keeping the production schedule in mind. Being prepared for a busy time isn’t about trying to do everything, it’s about making allowances for the essentials and being flexible because of the demands. Be realistic about what you can endure and when you cannot compromise.
Things like nutrition and sleep are non-negotiables, but where in your social calendar can you make changes? Alleviate the pressure by reminding yourself that the compromises are investments in your well-being.
A busy schedule might mean there is no time to cook after a long day of filming. Look into meal prepping or services like HelloFresh. For sleep, you can use a health app to create a sleep schedule to stick to.
By doing as much preparation as you can, you’ll save time during production and allow yourself room to adjust if you need to.
Check-in and Check-out
Once production begins, you can start to implement your routine and keep track of how you are feeling by creating a check-in/check-out system. It’s a simple routine for assessing your emotional state at the start and end of every day. The purpose of this system is to name your feelings, whatever they may be.
By showing up authentically, you can take care of your mental well-being from a place of information, instead of judgment. At the top of the day, ask yourself how you are feeling. You can either write down your response or say it out loud.
Using the information around your emotional state will help you learn more about what you need to maintain a healthy workday. For example, if you feel tired at the start of the day, you should have some extra time to rest. If you’re feeling low, ask yourself if you’re carrying your character’s emotional baggage and figure out how to ground your energy.
So often, we feel guilty about the feelings we’re having, instead of letting them be. Expressing our emotional state out loud is the first step in taking control of our well-being.
Manage Your Time Outside of the Work
While in production, actors can expect downtime to be a few days between filming, or evenings off from rehearsals. No matter how much time outside of production you have, it’s important to spend it wisely. Your routine should help create a healthy mental state.
Try going to the gym for an hour before your call time, or carve out time to socialize on Friday evenings. There’s so much to be gained from time spent with friends and family. Can you organize activities that stimulate brain power or attend events that allow you to switch off from work mode? Even a few hours out of the city you’re working in will have a huge impact.
You can assess what you need by looking at where you are struggling. If your hectic schedule is messing with your sleep, take extra care with a sleep meditation, or if your skincare routine is lacking, try booking an afternoon facial for a pick-me-up.
Maybe the subject matter in the production is intense and your mood is being affected by this. In this case, step away and find an activity that takes you far from the topic, like going to a comedy show or taking a dance class.
The Most Important Thing for Your Career
A healthy actor is a better actor. Being physically well, mentally fit and emotionally available are all qualities that will serve you better as a performer. While it might feel counterintuitive at first, it’s important to adopt routines and techniques for mental well-being, especially while navigating a demanding schedule.
During production, actors can expect to be physically tested and emotionally stretched to serve the work. There can be unexpected tasks of endurance, especially where character work is concerned. Creating a regime around your mental health and well-being will serve you and your career long-term.
While mental health has become an important factor in society in recent years, its effects are still being discovered. You may not know what you need until you need it, but it’s important to start somewhere and keep building toward your well-being.
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