Here I am in Vancouver, it’s a glorious sunny day, and yet again I’ve only been outside for a couple of minutes. It’s the usual – I try to get through my long to-do list for the day, and set the goal that by the end of the day, my reward will be going outside for a long ocean-view walk, before the sun goes down. Lucky for me, the sunset’s so late here, up north.
Does your life consist of long stretches of hard work and task-filled days and nights, interrupted by the occasional too-brief formal vacation? Do you push through the weeks and months until you finally arrive at that longed-for week of vacation? Today on MSNBC.com I read an article on how to recreate the vacation experience (and some of its benefits) on days that feel like anything but…
Some of their tips (with my comments added) include:
1) Turn off your phone, leave your office without telling anyone where you’re going – take a lovely break for lunch, in the sunshine and fresh air, if possible. (that’s what I did today – aaaah it was lovely). Eat your lunch on a bench in the park, or, if you long for a trip to the South of France, sneak away to an authentic little French bistro and watch the people stroll by your table.
2) Get outside – get fresh air whenever you can. Walk to work, take a walk on your break, stand at the window and inhale deeply of the fresh air outside while taking a break (hoping that your window isn’t directly over a packed intersection, of course!)
3) Keep a vacation scent in an office drawer – to take yourself on a brief mind-vacation with just one sniff. If I did this, it would probably be a tiny bottle of olive oil. Whenever I cook with it, which is often, I never tire of taking the cap off and inhaling its fresh, rich scent. In that moment, I’m sitting at a table in Italy, drizzling olive oil over a big hunk of crusty bread and waiting for my antipasti…
To enjoy the rest of the original MSNBC article, which contains more tips and expert opinions, click here
Though I had nothing to do with the above-mentioned MSNBC article, I was recently featured in another NBCNews.com piece on the “Coping Combos” that often emerge in response to stress. To read that article, click here. You’ll learn that even people who teach about life balance can have some pretty bad habits when under major stress!
