I am in the process of renewing my website… (Watch this space)… and the back-end editor which used to be very techy and require some knowledge of html (in my case very minimal) it has become instead a very intuitive, user-friendly and graphic editor. (If you are wondering what this has to do with you and your health, I promise I will get there).  This new easy to use web-editor is, like the pictures we now take every day, very digitally ‘heavy’. So, as I add pictures, review text and move blocks of text around there are occasions when the editor gets stuck. Like a rat on a wheel the page keeps ‘whirring’ but to no end.

On discussing this with the web-developer he offered an interesting short-term solution, and here is the link to our own well-being and resilience. I was told that I needed to quit my internet browser. This was the only way the browser would clear the ‘cache’ and allow the system to actually reboot. I grinned to myself as it reminded me of the many times in my corporate days when tech support’s first piece of advice was often “Have you tried to un-plug it and restart it?” 

I think we too often underestimate the extent to which we need to clear our own “cache”.  Sleep is our daily reboot (please treat it like the highest priority activity that it is). On a weekly basis it is equally necessary for our physical, mental and emotional health (which are all prisms of each other) that we take 1 day to completely unplug, literally and figuratively. And harking back to my days working alongside traders in days when we did not have smartphones, regulations that insisted banks, broker-dealers and other financial institutions ensure that their employees take 2 consecutive weeks holiday per year. The reasons behind this were to prevent fraud, but I would argue that it was also sufficient time for the traders and other financial operators themselves to really UNPLUG mentally from their work and therefor reboot their internal systems.

As we all head towards our summer holidays (be they stay-cations or exotic destinations) please take the time to fully UNPLUG. The hyper-connected world we now live in with social media, news apps, and our inbox in the palm of our hands, makes it all too easy to continue to let our mind whir and get caught up in thoughts and worries, or make us feel like we need to take action.  Here is my one-word suggestion: DON’T!

We can get carried away with the idea that ‘I’m just going to read this one email… as I sit on the beach’, or ‘make this one call’ before I sit down to eat a meal with my friends or family. You know as well as I do that it is never Just One. Whatever that one thing is, it normally sets off a chain reaction of actions you feel you need to take, or thoughts/worries. I would refer you to the ample body of evidence that multitasking drains our energy. And thinking you can keep switching from being on holiday to work-mode is just another form of multitasking. So, instead of trying to mentally be active on many fronts please take this time to JUST BE on holiday by clearing your “cache” and truly unplugging. 

I know, I know. I can hear you saying “But I am SO important, others might, but I cannot possibly disappear for a week, let alone two.” I promise you are both very important, and the world survive without for a week or two.

You will find tips to disconnect conciously in the practice below.

I wish you a wonderful holiday in which you are truly present to the people you are with and the experiences you are having so that you can reboot, regenerate and recharge.

Have a fabulous holiday!

*In the picture the image of the ideal phone for your holidays. I swear I found this, so I am obviously not the only one who believes there is a benefit to disconnecting.