For me, any vacation is a good vacation. The time away from work calms my mind, refreshes my body, rejuvinates my soul and apparently can also extend my life. If you don’t have the dough for a vacation or simply just can’t time off from work, you can still get away every day in the office.
Escaping the daily pressures of your job, coworkers and deadlines may seem like an impossibility but you can do it…and your boss never has to know. When you’re up to your ears in paperwork and nothing is going your way, just take a minute, relax and remember your last vacation. Here are a few other tips that might help:
Break for lunch. Take advantage of your lunch hour: turn off your cell phone, get out of the office and don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Removing yourself from a stressful environment, even if it’s onlyfor five minutes, can do wonders for your mind and your body and help you to focus the rest of the day.
Change your screensaver. Yes, those are my size 10′s, in all their glory, relaxing on the pristine beach of Riviera Maya this summer. I couldn’t tell you what was on my mind as I lay there, but I know I hadn’t felt as relaxed in a long while.
As a reminder of how wonderful I felt on that vacation, I downloaded all my pics from the trip on my computer. Seeing them allowed me to recapture those restful feelings whenever I needed a break from work or writing.
Go outside. You probably spent most of your last vacation outside, so do the same at work. Take five minutes to walk around your building, get the mail or just get some fresh air. You’ll be surprised how good you’ll feel.
Bring back the smell of the islands. Okay, so this is a bit out there, but it’s one of my favorites! Your sense of smell is strongly connected to whatever you felt when you were on vacation. I like to keep a coconut-scented air freshener out of sight in my office to transport me back to the islands, but you can also keep a tube of sunscreen in your drawer (for frequent sniffs), hotel soap or lotion from your trip or a vile of perfume. Scents can evoke memories from your trip and transport you back there, even if it was years ago.
