You have had a mad week, all the time from here to there, stuck to the phone, closing the last fringes of work so that everything is ready before leaving. You turn off the laptop cover. Finally, the holidays are coming … And now what?

Breaking with the work routine drastically and enjoying the holidays requires good dose of attitude to fulfill its main function: Achieve the rest of body and mind. Next, we propose the final guide to learn to rest on vacation in ten steps. Because we deserve this vacation more than ever.

The brain needs a break

Person lying next to the sea – Source: Unsplash

We could say that the brain needs to rest, but, strictly speaking, the brain never restseven when we sleep, meditate or put the “blank”: neurotransmitters never stop receiving and transmitting information, but they are capable of “Turn off” and “light” certain areas of the brain as necessary and depending on the activity in which we participate.

And that is the respite that our brain needs on vacation: Turn off overallized areas To light others less used in our usual routine so that, when the break ends, our brain is at full performance again.

When Marcus Raichle of the Washington University of San Luis in the United States discovered that The human brain permanently requires 20% of all the energy produced by the body It was shown that the brain is an implacable energy consumer, essential for proper functioning.

Raichle also discovered that particular set of scattered brain regions that were activated and deactivated in a coordinated manner according to the activity carried out … or the lack of activity: certain brain regions are activated when people rest.

This mysterious brain circuit was called DMN —RND in Spanish (Default neuronal network)– And it is the axis of an investigation of the University of Southern California that concludes that The brain takes advantage of our rest moments to affirm mental processes that would revolve around their own identity, memory, and understanding of human behavior and moral connotations of it.

This is how sometimes, The problems seem to be solved alone on vacation Or when we rest. Our brain is able to address situations in “background” to synthesize dilemmas and dilemma that in a normal situation may not be able to face: look and feel, for example, water descends through a stream can solve our biggest problem.

So the next time You feel guilty for resting and not being productiveRemember that the brain is always active, but it needs the breath of vacations to stimulate its operation.

Avoid ruminant thoughts

Woman practicing yoga or meditation in a garden – Source: Pixabay

The greatest danger of vacations is not to leave work aside, both literal and metaphorical. That is why we put so much effort to “close everything” before going, for fear that there is a pending fringe that becomes our ruminant thinking of the holidays. Because We are able to spend a week on the beach turning a minutiain order not to disconnect.

And the same can be said of those other personal issues that we don’t let rest on vacation either. Sometimes, Having more free time, these problems emerge with greater virulence. How to prevent one of those ruminant thoughts from ruining your vacation? Play, give yourself a forest bath, focus on your hobbies or discover new experiences: whatever it takes in order not to focus our rest on a problem and not take respite to our brain.

Organize yourself

A minimum organization to take advantage of vacations is essential. We would like that, by magic, everything was ready to be enjoyed when they start the holidays, but that is not possible. So Touch planeven if we do not have time, or enthusiasm while we are finalizing the last fringes of work. But be careful, don’t turn rest into a new job: between pure improvisation and Trabacations There is a middle ground.

Learn to do nothing

Man lying on a wooden bank in a mountain landscape – Source: Pexels

We do not want to be heavy with this issue, again. But if you are not able to stay still 15 minutes in a room without doing anything – but nothing, nothing, not even to look at the mobile – is that you have a problem. And it’s not a joke.

The dangerous anxiety to find performance to all acts of life is causing People are unable to rest“To live for the pleasure of being alive and nothing else.” So sit down and relax. Your mind needs it.

Find happiness

Vacations also give us free time for reflection, a more abstract type of reflection than the routine. And perhaps, then, put in “reflection mode”, happiness becomes the center of it. And you ask yourself: “Am I really happy? And if I’m not, how do I look for happiness».

The holidays are a good time to find, to glimpse happiness, that not to look for it because Happiness is not sought, it is found. Like inspiration or ideas, happiness appears when looking in another direction. As well as Picasso inspiration caught him working, that happiness caught you living. And what better to live than vacations.

Delegate

Not all works are the same, not all jobs revolve around a computer, an office and a work team. In any case, you work where you work, you must learn to delegate, which means trusting your classmates, your bosses and/or in your employees. Remember that No one is essential And that the world is not going to come down because you are not present in your job for a few days.

Disconnect

Woman sitting in a red wooden bench in front of a lake. Source: Pexels

To learn to rest, it is unavoidable condition to learn to disconnect. Because without disconnection we run the danger of suffering the so -called syndrome Burnout or of the exhausted worker. Different studies alert about the feeling of exhaustion of students and professionals, particularly notable within the health sector.

A survey among resident doctors in Ireland showed that 64% of those who experienced symptoms of exhaustion reported having made a medical error compared to 22% of those who did not experience Burnout.

Although it is evident that health professionals work in a very delicate sector – as we have checked throughout the pandemic – it helps us to illustrate the importance of disconnection in rest on vacation and in improving performance with the return to work.

Disdigitalize yourself

Although all experts agree on the need for digital disconnection on vacation, perhaps it would be necessary to start with rethink the relationship we maintain with the digital environmentwith screens, internet and social networks … also when they are not vacations.

If we are doing something wrong with the rest of the year, why are we going to stop doing it wrong on vacation? It is as if we told a child who only for one month a year must reduce his exposure to the screens. Better all year, right? Although we are going to try to see the glass half full: if we manage to disconnect from noise and digital oveinformation during our break, we may get unraveling the rest of the year. Everything is starting.

Discover

The rest of the holidays should not consist only of doing nothing, however tempting it may be. Another perfect way to give a breath to our brain is discover new experiences: From learning to play the guitar, to throw yourself in parachute, from traveling to incredible places to start a novel. You can even start walking … for the simple taste of walking. Did you know that walking stimulates creative thinking?

It doesn’t matter what you choose, whenever it is something that seduces you. The question is to take advantage of vacations to discover, to discover in a new context: You know, leave your comfort zone.

Read

Woman reading in a park. Source: Pexels

We do not think of a better way to make an active break on vacation than to read, especially if you are not very fond of reading during the rest of the year. You will not be the first or the second person who devours a book on the beach as if I had learned to read during those vacations.

The reading, especially fiction, is the ideal energy that our neurotransmitters put to work, the perfect means to affirm those mental processes that the brain requires to take a respite of routine anxiety. So, you know, don’t forget to put some book in the suitcase. Your brain will thank you… when you return from the holidays.