Take a break

Are vacations what they used to be? Do we get the same downtime as what they did back in the baby boomer days? I have been fortunate enough to have had a variety of getaways over the past couple of years and on thing I have noticed is, in order to fully relax I need to digitally detox at the same time. It’s easy to take a vacation and take all our work and stresses along with us as communication has evolved so much that you could literally run a business using just your mobile phone from anywhere in the world. Now tapping out from work for a week is the easy part, what about the news, social media, portfolio checkins, YouTube tutorials? All available at the tap of an app, we forget that these too have an energetic drain on us as it’s the dopamine fix that they give that keeps us in this loop of always wanting more. The more we scroll the more our brain is making decisions about everything the eyes see, subconsciously analysing and forming opinions about each piece of content. Going away and not changing your habits for that length of time is basically just doing much of the same from a different location. The holidays I come back from feeling the most energised, are the ones where my phone is locked in the safe in the hotel room for 95% of my stay, the ones where I go in morning walks and the ones where I eat healthy food.