We asked our Rooted farmers to share how they support their mental and physical well-being, especially when they are busier than ever.
A friendly reminder to be kind to yourself during the busiest season of the year: Running your farm ‘is a marathon, not a sprint.’
Farming is not a profession for the faint of heart, a fact that becomes tangible when peak season hits. Between harvesting, selling, transporting, storing, maintaining machinery, packing, and shipping, most of us are running on a potent mix of adrenaline and caffeine during peak season months.
While we’re not here to convince you to set down your cold brew, we do want to bring you the Rooted community’s wisdom, comfort, and sense of humor to support you through the most intense and critical of farming seasons.
Below, we’ve gathered tips and tricks from growers and hub leaders (including from our thriving Insta community) to keep our minds and bodies in full-power mode throughout the heaviest weeks of the harvest season. By protecting your mental and physical well-being during this time, and adding a dose of levity, you ensure a more successful and sustainable business for yourself and your loved ones.
Please note: Nothing in this article is professional mental health advice. For mental health concerns or to seek professional support, call 911 or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
Protect your peace of mind
A functioning, firing-on-all-cylinders mind is critical for you to perform at your best in this crucial season. Prioritize keeping your brain working at its optimal levels!
Get some R&R (or at least one of the Rs): The most important thing for us all to recognize is that in order to continue operating a sustainable business over the long-term, we must carve out time for rest and recovery, even (especially) when we’re at our busiest. Protecting your mental health and peace of mind is always the right decision for your business, your family and friends, and yourself.
We spoke with psychologist Evan Bick, PsyD., who offered this advice:
“It’s important for everyone to find ways to create effective boundaries between the various aspects of their lives. It’s just not possible to fulfill the fantasy of being 100% committed to work, 100% committed to friends and family, and 100% committed to taking care of ourselves.
I encourage the people I work with to think about three things in order to maintain the work-life boundaries that make it easier to function effectively:
- Be explicit with yourself about when you’re working, and when you’re not. (Not to state the obvious, but don’t work when you’re not working.)
- Multitask as little as possible! Be fully present in what you’re doing at the moment.
- Give yourself permission to put things aside when you need to. Making time for each of your roles in life will be helpful in the long run.”
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Save notes and tasks for your off-season self: During the busiest season of the year, it’s easy to experience frustration about things we want to improve or change. But, now isn’t the time to make big decisions or shifts. Instead, take a tip our friend Jill Shea, who runs Connecticut Flower Collective out of Middletown, Connecticut, shared during a Barn Talks episode: Take notes you’d like to come back and address later. This helps you feel that you’re being proactive about making changes or improvements without burdening yourself to take action now or remember every detail for the future.
“I call it our diary,” Jill says, “and we're just capturing our feelings about what's happening during the season. Then we can review those at the end of the season, in November through February, when we slow down enough to get deeper. … This is a good way not to have those instinctive parts — or what I refer to as the emotional moments — infuse our decision-making."
The right tech for the job: Finally, prepare yourself to manage the chaos by choosing built-for-the-job technology like (🎺 insert trumpet horn here) Rooted Farmers! We are farmers and hub managers who built this tool specifically to replace the crazy tech stack and streamline farm orders into one place. Check out our “burnout cure” content collection here, and set a time now to walk through a demo when you get to the off-season.
Keep your body in balance
Farming is hard on our bodies. Care for peak-season bodies looks a lot like care for our bodies all year. The difference? Remembering to carve out time to prioritize physical health right now.
Beat the heat: You’ve heard it before, but it can be easy to forget — stay hydrated and keep cool by doing harvesting or intense outdoor work outside of peak heat hours. Protect yourself with hats, sleeves, and sunblock. Gaby Lee, Rooted Farmers Product Quality & Experience Lead and hub manager with the California Bay Flower Collective, recommends “electrolytes and taking some time to get off the farm and do something for yourself, even when the to-do list is never-ending."
Eat it up: Next on the obvious (but yes, you need the reminder) list? Nutrition! You are asking a lot of your body during this season, so give it the fuel it needs to perform. That means nutritious, well-balanced meals, ideally eaten while sitting down. And, as our friend Luke Ropi of Honey Field Farm says: “Keep lots of snacks handy! It’s easy to forget daily essentials when your to-do list seems endless, but keeping quick, healthy options accessible can make it easier to take short breaks and ensure that you’re not forgetting crucial nourishment along the way.”
Stretch it out: Balance the physical demands of the job by giving your body some love. Whether you turn to the mind-body connection of yoga or disconnect on the running trail, don’t let the physical habits that help you escape all year fall to the wayside when you need them most.
A few farmer-provided resources:
- Here is our collection of simple stretches specifically for farmers.
- Valerie Woodhouse, who runs Honey Field Farm with her partner Eli, says “I’d like to offer a plug for the Labor Movement Athletes in Overalls resources. Their trainings are great in person but they also have tons of videos on the ergonomics of farming.”
Sleep on it: Here’s another one you know but may set aside — prioritize your sleep. That extra hour of shut-eye is infinitely more valuable than an hour of social media scrolling or even working before bed. Set a bedtime and stick to it.
Get by with a little help
Harvest season is the time to lean on our farming community, and be a support back. These efforts strengthen bonds and friendships and prevent the “I’m alone” feeling that can deepen burnout symptoms.
Commiserate and seek support: As Valerie Woodhouse puts it: “Remember to commiserate with your farmer friends and remember Instagram is an illusion. Most people aren’t showcasing the real-deal, raw, weedy goodness of farm life. Limit social media doomscrolling, and instead take a walk with your dog or a friend. I’ll also recommend the VT Farm First peer support network and related programs, which are all free. You can connect with a farmer peer for a sounding board, resources and support. They also have 12 free counseling sessions with a therapist for farm owners.”
Note: While not available in every state, there are peer-support networks blooming across the country. A quick online search for your state or region could help you find one near you (or make a note for your post-peak-season self to look into how to get one started!).
Sustain you to sustain your businesses
When we are running a busy farm during peak season, it can be easy to put the world on our shoulders and believe “if I don’t do it, no one will.” But as Evan Bick reminds us: “At the risk of sounding like a cliché, running any kind of business is a marathon, not a sprint. Successfully running a business means figuring out how to run it sustainably, and one of the things that needs to be sustained is you!”
We are farmers like you, and we get it’s easy to say, “just shut off and set a boundary.” But, when it means wasting the crops you’ve worked all year to grow, heading home an hour early isn’t always possible. Still, if there is no healthy you, there is no healthy farm, and with no healthy farms (yes, we’ll say it), there’s no healthy world.
So from our farm family to yours, we wish you a healthy and prosperous harvest season.
We’re here to help! Whether you’re a food hub operator or a grower, our Rooted team of specialty crop farmers and hub managers is excited to help you succeed. We invite you to book a demo to learn more and chat with a team member about your farm business goals and how to achieve them. If you’re a Rooted user in need of support, you can find details about our weekly office hours in your dashboard — join to get live help from a Rooted team member!