Switching off (and why it’s essential!)

Whether we’re lucky enough to be able to afford a proper holiday, or we stay local on our days off, taking time away from work and day to day routine is important. Constant stress is not good for us and impacts both our physical and mental health, and taking time off helps us recharge, heal and reset.

A review of data from 32 studies into the impact of holidays on wellbeing by the BPS found that, as we might reasonably imagine, wellbeing reduced when someone came back from holiday but it remained higher than it has been before the time off.

How long that benefit sticks around for depends on a few different things; how long we were away for, but also what we got up to when we were off. Instead of it being about sunning ourselves on the beach or at a pool, what was actually more important was that people are able to mentally detach from work. So whether we’re doing very little or having a busy time exploring a new city, the real value for our wellbeing comes from being able to forget about work.

So how do we do that? How do we protect that time away from work. It’s all about making sure we have healthy boundaries in place. Now, I’ve spoken about boundaries before, but having boundaries helps us look after ourselves. That might be around time for example (how much time you spend with someone or spend doing something; “I can only stay for 30 minutes.”), our internal energy (how much energy we give to other people vs ourselves: “I’ve been social all week, so I’m going to take the weekend for myself.”

MENTAL – Freedom to have our own thoughts, values and opinions.

EMOTIONAL – How emotionally available you are to others.

MATERIAL – Monetary decisions, giving or lending to others.

INTERNAL – How we spend our energy on other people vs ourselves.

CONVERSATIONAL – Topics that you do and do not feel comfortable discussing.

PHYSICAL – Privacy and personal space.

TIME – How much time you spend with someone or doing something.

Some simple boundaries when it comes to time away from work can include things like not checking or responding to emails or messages outside of working hours, switching off the work phone (if we have one) if we’re not on call and not being part of any Work whatsapp chats or online conversations on our personal time or days off. Being OK with not being available can be a heck of a hard thing for managers to accept, but challenging that discomfort is really important both for the individual and the workplace.

When it comes to making the most of our time off and making it work for us, making time for ourselves is key and that can be tough if we’re used to reflexively putting other people’s needs first. What’s right for us? What do we need right now? If we have kids, and as I write this kids in Scotland have just stopped, how are we managing them being off school for the summer? Are we overloading ourselves with things for them to do? Do we need them to have a “perfect” summer? What might be “good enough” that will help us look after ourselves ?

And that’s something that is incredibly important too. Holidays paradoxically can bring stress with travel and getting ourselves (and everyone else) to and from whatever we have planned. We can wind ourselves up about everything needing to be perfect; the perfect view, the perfect table at the restaurant, getting completely through the ‘must-see’ list. But we can’t control everything and expecting ourselves to be able to create a perfect situation is unrealistic. We can go all the way to Disneyworld and it might rain or one of the rides we wanted to go on is closed for repairs, but at the end of the day does that matter? Can we let it “perfect” go, roll with any challenges and just be present?

So we know that holidays and breaks from work are important for our mental health, and we know that we shouldn’t let “perfect” get in the way of “good enough”, but let’s commit to doing something about it. What are you going to change today that’s going to help you switch off from work and make the most of them for your mental health?

Struggling with anxiety and burnout and want to talk control of your mental health? Get in touch! You can contact me through the form on the website or email me directly at mckellarCBT@gmail.com.