Last week, I took a desperately needed vacation. One week, one cruise, seven days, no wifi. Bliss.
While I blithely go through my life as if everything is super easy, this year I have done a voice recital, moved apartments, ran my business, taught, written (still writing), and am still working to get our apartment exactly as we want it.
I was tired.
My partner wanted to go on vacation, but couldn’t quite rally to get it together. She left that to me.
I had no bandwidth to plan a vacation, so I picked a cruise that left out of New York City. I had to plan NOTHING. No food, no accommodations. We got beaches, food, entertainment, and rest.
Perhaps you can’t pull off a vacation of any sort. I hear you.
But there are things you can do to unplug and recharge yourself so that you replenish yourself if you don’t take a cruise. Behold, my lessons learned.
1. Unplug from wifi. This is a heavy lift for all of us because this has now become a form of entertainment. Games. Netflix. Hulu. Facebook. Twitter. And all of the other things.
However, I could feel my nerves chill out when I had no access to email. I could solve no problems. I just had to enjoy where I was. I did read books on my devices, but that’s a very different animal than scrolling on Twitter. Which I love to do.
I will start to do this on Sundays. If I’m home, I will turn off my phone. Sundays are now for reading books and knitting.
2. Sleep when I need it. There were days where I could not pull off the robust night’s sleep I wanted. But then I would NAP!!! And I could get all 8 hours I needed.
Now, I don’t normally have three extra hours to sleep during my day, but with little sleep, I end up sleepwalking anyway.
Even if there is just a 30 minute chunk of time during my day, I will actually take that nap.
Except for today.
This is not about perfection, but I know what I need to do.
3. Spend more time outside. I actually sat by the pool lots during this cruise, which is kind of crazy because I’m not really a pool kind of person. However, I loved feeling the sun’s rays on my body and then jumping into a body of water to cool off. I feel much more relaxed.
4. Exercise works even if on vacation. It made a world of difference for me to go to the gym everyday. I do either walk 5 miles per day or go to the gym regularly. It helps with sleep and relaxation. And I was fortunate enough to capture this lovely sunrise . . .
Soooooo, if you can’t go on vacation, you CAN plan your time off of wifi, take naps, spend time outside, and exercise. You don’t need a fancy trip to do it and it will improve your concentration, make you less irate, and enjoy life a little more.
And this is pretty much all of us want, right?
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