Would you like to know how to enjoy your holidays?
Summer vacations are walks on the beach at sunset, children flooding swimming pools, the art of doing nothing, disconnecting from work responsibilities, and enduring thermometers exposed to unbearable temperatures.
Summer is here, longed for by many as an escape from the daily routine in which it isn’t easy to balance work with the other aspects of life. However, it is a nightmare for others who cannot disconnect. This indicates interesting things about their way of handling and understanding their work or the circumstances in which they have to develop it.
It is no coincidence that the end of summer leads to an increase in the number of divorce cases and an increase in the number of people who start therapy. During summer vacations, families are forced to spend more time together. Being used to their routine, living together on vacation can become very difficult. In addition, aspects that have not been resolved during the rest of the year come to the surface and give rise to conflicts. Uncomfortable situations and frictions arise, causing stress, which is added to the work stress from which you want to rest and prevents you from enjoying those days off.
In this context, it is essential not to wait to deal with these issues these days: the sooner they are addressed, the better if you want a good opportunity to enjoy your holidays.
On the other hand, some people do not know how to take advantage of these days off and enter a circle of being overwhelmed by not knowing what to do with their free time, which makes it difficult to relax and enjoy their vacations.
How to enjoy your holidays (as much as possible)
1. Avoid planning every minute
It is normal to arrange the destination and the time, but be careful planning daily. Having all your free time planned can lead to not meeting your expectations and not enjoying your vacation. Improvising allows us to relax and connect with our free time better.
2. Try new things
Try to step out of your comfort zone. You will realize how you can look at things from new perspectives and distance yourself from the usual problems. When you travel to new places and explore or do new activities, even in your everyday space, you give yourself a break from routine. Sometimes it fails, but sometimes novelty is a good thing to enjoy on vacation.
3. Live in the moment
Learn to disconnect from problems and place yourself firmly in the present. Embrace a mindful attitude and try to enjoy the present moment you find yourself. Notice the details and try to connect with yourself to enjoy your holidays.
3. Enjoy ‘me’ time
Taking advantage of vacations is essential to be with family or friends, but remember that it is also an opportunity to make plans on your own and enjoy yourself. Find the balance you need to make the most of your break and enjoy your holidays.
4. Switch off
Sometimes, because of our role in the company or unforeseen circumstances, we cannot leave corporate email aside or continue to work -even a little- during our vacations. We also overuse social media and apps instead of engaging in more analogical activities. Try to take a little break from digital to enjoy the holidays. Your eyes and your brain will thank you for it.
Tips on how to enjoy your holidays
1. Plan and discuss with your children
It can be difficult to enjoy our time when we are worried about keeping our children busy. In this sense, the best thing to do is to plan what activities we would like them to do, considering their tastes and preferences, and agree with them. If they see that we have their opinion, it will be easier for them to decide and feel motivated to do them. Try to do some activity as a family because it will help to strengthen your relationship.
2. Tire yourself out
Try to engage in activities that can tire you physically. It is a good opportunity to catch up on the sleep you lose during the year. In addition, by doing activities that require effort, we are encouraging the production of endorphins, the hormones of happiness.
3. Take the opportunity to do things you enjoy
During the rest of the year, you likely complain about not having time to dedicate to the activities that you want to do. Take advantage of your free time to find what you are passionate about, read, write, and draw… it will help you connect with yourself and discover who you are. Remember that if you have a satisfactory experience outside the office, it is easier for your life inside the office to be more pleasant that is, to improve your experience as an employee.
4. No more self-consciousness
It is clear that in the world we live in, image is important. In summer, it is very easy for self-consciousness to increase and for us to become anxious about wanting to have a body different from our own. What if, instead of comparing ourselves with others, we look more at what makes us unique and what we like about ourselves?
How do holidays affect us?
It is evident that taking a few days of vacation and leaving work responsibilities aside fosters our physical and psychological well-being. But what are the real effects?
1. Reduces stress
Rest helps to lower the level of cortisol, the stress hormone. Taking a few days off reduces our mental exhaustion and allows us to recover the energy we need. It also helps us stay physically healthy, as it has been proven that increased stress leads to disease onset.
2. Increases creativity
Rest encourages our most artistic and creative side. By feeling relaxed, we develop new strategies and activate mental areas that help us gain perspective.
3. Improves decision making
The mental unblocking caused by vacations improve judgment and memory. When you feel relaxed, you can take more information into account to be more analytical than when you are under pressure.
4. Improves productivity
Being more productive does not mean we work longer but can better use the hours. People who take vacations to disconnect from their routines feel more satisfied with their work. This satisfaction fosters a better work environment.
Tailored emotional support for your employees
At ifeel, we are committed to improving employee and company well-being. That is why we strive to help them in the challenge of generating stimulating and healthy work environments for their employees.
For this purpose, our psychologists have created an emotional well-being program for companies. Through this collaboration, your company’s HR managers will be able to receive personalized, data-driven advice on how to improve their teams’ psychological well-being. In addition, this program provides employees with a complete mental health care service structured at different levels according to their needs. Try our program now to see how it can help you.
Visit our Resources section, where you will find podcasts, guides for Human Resources, or interviews with leading HR professionals. In addition, you will have access to a Psychosocial Risk Factors Template, which will help you comply with the Labor Inspection requirements.
We hope this post about how to enjoy your holidays has given you some good ideas to make it easier for you to relax and make the most of your time off. Contact us to learn more about how our emotional well-being program for companies works.
