PANDEMIC OF WORK

Stress
When you are loaded with multiple pressures at work, your body reacts with the survival response of fight or flight. Sustained challenges lead to constant stress, which does not go away even when you go home. Being stressed prevents you from thinking straight and impedes your analysis and actions at work. When you take a holiday, you immediately reduce the stress in your life and give yourself the space and time to get back to work with a clear mind.

Life is short. Don’t make it shorter by avoiding holidays. Reports say people who do not take holidays have a 21% higher risk of death from all causes. If you sit for long hours and have poor eating habits, coupled with low sleep and high stress levels, hypertension is a given. Consider holidays as an enjoyable way to invest in your good health.

Productivity
Studies agree that if you don’t take holidays, your productivity suffers. Long periods of work without break lead to irritability, poor decision making, poor communication and relationships and more days off due to ill health. When you go on holiday, you reverse all that and come back with greater focus, an optimistic mindset and productivity soars.

Biggest investment
The primary resource for creating wealth in your life is you. Think of holidays as an investment to increase the size and value of that asset. A holiday is an opportunity to expand your horizons by travelling to new places, signing up for new experiences and creating memories that sustain you. As a bonus, you meet interesting and extraordinary people and create relationships that enhance either your personal or professional life.

New Vistas
On holiday, you are exposed to new environments, different human behaviours, cultures and diverse ways of doing business. You learn there is no single way to either deal with life or work. What matters is how many different tools and perspectives you have at your disposal to navigate responsibilities and challenges. Holidays serve as unstructured education for you where you absorb and imbibe fresh perspectives.

Family time
While working, you tend to compromise on your relationships, especially within your family. As work deadlines take priority you miss out on family gatherings and regular bonding opportunities. You cannot compensate for lost time and opportunities by waiting for retirement. Make up for lack of quantity by increasing quality and intensity when you take time off. Holidays are your ideal investment as travelling together is the best way to build relationships.

Lose on promotion?
Are you afraid you are in a hyper-competitive environment and taking holidays may lose you the next promotion to your colleague who never takes a day off? Or are you worried that you will get laid off simply because you availed of some authorised leave? Studies say there is no evidence to show that people who are promoted took no holidays. On the contrary, people who rise fast usually have balanced lives.

Learning and creativity
Science says that the human mind maximises learning in resting hours. Hence all education is structured with adequate breaks. The way your brain functions is that you absorb and record information through your working day. Then, to use that information effectively your brain needs time off to process it, make meaningful connections with other learnings that you have and throw up creative ideas from these connections.

To consolidate your regular learning, get adequate sleep every single night to let your brain recover and build new connections. To get creative and find new solutions, free up your brain’s resources from the daily grind of survival and workplace challenges. Like most successful people, you will find that your best insights and most creative ideas emerge from your sub-conscious when you are on holiday.

Something to look forward to
Finally, if your job and personal challenges drain you daily, then your planned holiday becomes your beacon of hope and happiness in the days leading to the trip. As you plan and prepare for something that you look forward to, the daily effort gets easier and seems worthwhile since it is paying for your holiday. If you are smart, while on holiday you will commit to your next holiday giving yourself the energy and enthusiasm for the work that will get you there. 

 

Posted by Donna Brooke on January 13, 2022