Stay healthy on holiday
Dreading a case of well earned break burnout? Prepare yourself to make this time off a period you really enjoy.
Isn’t it ironic how many of us fall sick during our holidays? It’s almost like our body makes a pact with the devil to see us through the exams, deadlines and even the obligatory Christmas drinks marathons and, just as we contemplate packing the suitcase ready for the holiday of a lifetime, the body packs up. So how do we prepare for the holidays to ensure we spend them lounging on a deck chair looking glam rather than sprawled on a gurney looking moribund?
Save something for later
If you spend the last few weeks of “term time” running yourself ragged and drinking yourself into oblivion, is it any wonder you need to spend the first part of your holidays recuperating in a dark room or hospital ward? The fact that you have a break coming up is not an excuse to burn the candle at both ends. Pace yourself.
Get a pre-holiday check-up
Just as you’d take the car for a service before taking it across the Nullarbor, so you should see your doctor before embarking on any big trips or holidays, to ensure your general health is in order and check if any vaccines or other medical precautions are advisable.
Get fit, and start early
Don’t wait until the holidays to get fit. If you want to make the most of that trekking trip or the skiing at St Moritz (or even the competitive shopping in Hong Kong), you need to tone your quads before you hit the slopes. Holidays are something to spring into, not stagger and slump into, so spring is the time to plan your fitness regime in preparation for summer holiday shenanigans.
Be prepared
A first-aid kit should contain more than a couple of Wiggles Band-Aids and a tube of Savlon. The contents need to be tailored to your individual needs. Do you have kids? Does anyone suffer from asthma, allergies or hayfever? Are you likely to need a pressure bandage in case of a snake bite or a twisted ankle, and how about tweezers to remove splinters? Or will your medical needs be more along the lines of flesh-toned Band-Aids for blisters from dancing all night or wearing in your new Manolos? Consider what your access to medical services is likely to be and the level of physical risk you will be confronting: hypothermia from excessive air-conditioning in the hotel lobby or hyperthermia in the Saharan sands?
Clear your mind and clear your desk
Taking all your worries with you, packing your work files and iPhone or BlackBerry, ringing into the office daily for updates on your accounts … this is a recipe for holiday burnout. Your holiday-mate(s), be it spouse and kids or friends, don’t really want to share you. Even if you’re travelling solo, don’t you want the notes slipped under your door to be invitations from sexy strangers, rather than urgent faxes from work?
Aim to tie up all loose ends before you log off and lock up the laptop. Working from a distance, even from an expensive resort with broadband, can be more stressful than being at work. Are you really that indispensable? Then stay home! Seriously, the more you start to believe you are truly and utterly indispensable, the more you need to take a good break and a family block-sized chill pill.
Your relationships will benefit, as will your health, and believe it or not, so may your work and work relationships, not to mention your work-life balance. Holidays are a necessary good and a much-needed balancer for the necessary evil that is work. Respect, honour and prepare for your holidays the same way you do your work and reap the multitudinous rewards.