Episode 42- 5 Tips To Get The Most From Your Day Off

In this episode, I offer 5 tips to get the most of your day off work.

Episode 42 – 5 Tips To Get The Most From Your Day Off
Work-life balance is never easy to manage, no matter what you do for a living, because our bodies are consistently used to managing stress. This couldn’t be more true for a highly specialized health practitioner who might feel guilty for taking a day off.

Work-life balance is never easy to manage, no matter what you do for a living, because our bodies are consistently used to managing stress. This couldn’t be more true for a highly specialized health practitioner who might feel guilty for taking a day off. But sometimes you just need to plan for what you’re going to do, in order to make the most of that day. We all need the rest without any specific reason!

Here are 5 tips to get the most of your day off:

Plan for a super amazing breakfast.
Count the hours you’ll have of leisure time and work-time well in advance of your week. Napolean Hill offers up some perspective here.
Plan your leisure time in advance, and record it in your agenda so you know what fun things lie ahead.
Learn to meditate properly. Meditation is proven to reduce the stress hormone cortisol and add more funk and soul to your life.
Shut-off your wifi for a certain period each day, that way you can free to relax knowing no emails are coming in. This is your time.

Episode 42 Audio Script Below:

In a recent post on the 7 Deadly Mistakes Health Care Practitioners Make, I said the first 2 mistakes were: 1) they often take their health for granted and 2) invest too much of themselves into their work (and miss out on opportunities to revitalize your health while off). Work-life balance is never easy to manage, no matter what you do for a living, because our bodies are consistently used to managing stress. This couldn’t be more true for a highly specialized health practitioner who might feel guilty for taking a day off. If you’re struggling with adrenal fatigue or emotional exhaustion, this makes it even more difficult to transition during our days off. When it comes to having to invest more hours into your work than you’d like, you might be missing some important mindfulness cues to give you the heads-up that your health is at risk.

Why might your health be at risk by not taking time off?

When you’re under a lot of stress, your mind and body become addicted to the physical state of stress. This stress makes it extremely difficult to slow your body and mind down after the work day. This cycle of being ‘wound-up’ makes it even more difficult to know how to manage yourself at the end of the day. Your body might not even allow you to rest enough for a good night’s sleep! That’s because your nervous system is so taxed, and your body and mind need to be strategically trained to take the downtime required to actually get a good night sleep (without medication).

Here are 5 tips to make the most of your day off:

1. Plan for a super amazing breakfast, in bed or at your favourite restaurant. I want you to think of yourself having that amazing breakfast with either some awesome tunes, a book, magazine or a friend – sans téléphone! This is your chance to press the reset button on your body. If breakfast isn’t your thing, you might want to venture out to a café and indulge your senses in the aroma of fresh brewed coffee.

2. Count the hours you have for leisure time, and work time.

Napolean Hill divides the 24-hour cycle in such a way: 8 hours for sleep, 8-hours for work, 8-hours of leisure time. If you are a busy health practitioner working 12-hour shifts, this 24-hour cycle obviously doesn’t apply to you on a daily basis, obviously. But you can still divide the hours outside of work as leisure/sleep and become aware that those hours are your own. Also the days you are off from work are your leisure time. Be aware so that you don’t allow work to sneak into your leisure time…doing overtime or charting at home.

3. Plan your leisure time in advance, and record it in your agenda.

If you plan out once a week what you’ll be doing with your leisure time, you’ll be able to mindfully make the most of that time off work. Furthermore, you’ll add more joy to your life knowing this time has been planned for yourself. You might even find yourself planning weeks or months in advance, offering you more passion and joy to connect with friends and family that you miss. You can also use this time to plan out your time away from work so that it causes minimal issues for your employer.

4. Learn to meditate properly.

By incorporating a meditation course into your free time, you can gradually learn over a few hours. Satori’s Meditation program is delivered once a week, for 4 weeks, in a 90-minute chunk. By incorporating the knowledge slowly over the month, you can learn to apply the practice and get all your questions answered with respect to learning this technique. You’ll slowly learn how to make time for this practice. Changing your routine, especially with how you use your time off work, takes practice and patience. With only 20-minutes of meditation per day, you’ll boost your brain power, creativity, and even your IQ, while allowing your mind and body to relax enough to combat the negative effects of stress in the body. Meditation is proven to reduce the stress hormone cortisol.

Shut off your wifi and phone for a certain period throughout the day.

There’s evidence to support the damaging effects of wifi on the nervous system. At present, it’s tough to disconnect from it outside the home environment. I’m giving you permission to unplug and be present with yourself for a few hours. I want you to think of yourself having that amazing breakfast with either some awesome tunes, a book, magazine or a friend – sans téléphone!

What might be the consequence of not making the most of your time-off work?

You can burnout! If you’re overworked, you might not know how to take restful time off work, making it super tough to get back to neutral. Although you might be meeting many of your needs through work, these needs can’t replace the need to take care of your physiology and get proper sleep or restful downtime. Another consequence to not managing your super awesome time-off more productively is your needs might be getting met in many maladaptive ways. What I mean by that is you might be over-eating and over-drinking, facing depression and anxiety, and lacking in patience with the people that love you. This can spiral downwards, putting YOU in a vulnerable place where you feel you no longer have control over your thoughts. At this point, you’re being ruled on a subconscious level.

Tell me, how many times have you woken-up hung over and spend your day work hung over from the night before?

What happens when you have no choice but to work extra hours, due to money, family and life circumstances?

If you’re in this situation, and taking some extra hours off-work would be detrimental to your finances, I encourage you to manage your emotional, spiritual and cognitive needs through a daily meditation routine of 20-minutes each day. This is the time when you can nurture your soul and take time out for you. And at the same time, you’re helping your body come to neutral with the option to actually boost your memory and cognitive function. After all, you’re probably missing out on valuable sleep because you’re wanting to fit in a few hours with your family but with vedic meditation as a strategy, and even a system, you’re able to reap the benefits physically within moments of starting your meditation.