Beating holiday anxiety: how to take time off without taking work with you - with Elaine Smith

#216: Dr. Elaine Smith is a clinical psychologist with over 15 years’ experience working in mental health.  She explains the neurological benefits of disconnecting from work, how long it takes to relax, and why people find it difficult to disconnect from work.

What you’ll learn

• [02:05] The benefits of fully disconnecting from work when you’re on holiday. 
• [04:40] What to do if you’re thinking about work when on holiday. 
• [08:35] How being on holiday can affect how you feel. 
• [10:15] The importance of a work-life balance. 
• [11:50] Ways to reduce the stress around holiday planning. 
• [13:42] How long it takes to relax properly. 
• [15:47] How to get ready for a holiday. 
• [17:36] When to start preparing at work for an upcoming holiday. 
• [18:50] How to deal with the expectation that you’ll work on holiday. 
• [27:26] What you should write an out-of-office message. 
• [29:45] How people respond to seeing you’re not available. 
• [32:31] Why people find it difficult to disconnect from work. 
• [34:16] Techniques to reduce the amount of time you spend on your phone. 
• [37:08] The ways smartphones affect our attention and the value of being bored. 
• [38:50] How to resist the temptation to spend time on your phone. 
• [41:20] How to make your return to work less stressful. 
• [45:45] Introducing progressive muscle relaxation.

Resources mentioned in this episode
Please note that some of these are affiliate links and we may get a commission in the event that you make a purchase.  This helps us to cover our expenses and is at no additional cost to you.

• Beat Annual Leave Anxiety course
• ScreenZen
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation

For the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:

https://changeworklife.com/beating-holiday-anxiety-how-to-take-time-off-without-taking-work-with-you/

Re-assessing your career?  Know you need a change but don't really know where to start?  Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!

Transcript

0:00

How good are you at switching off when you're on holiday? Are you someone who can create your own bubble and avoid real life the entire time you're away? Or do you find yourself checking emails, checking social media, checking news websites, seeing what else is going on outside of your holiday bubble? If you don't want to be the person who checks your emails when you're sitting by the pool, and you want to avoid the feeling of dread for what might be waiting for you on your return, then this is the episode for you. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life. Hello and welcome to Change Work Life, the podcast where we're all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I'm a career coach, you can find out more about that at changeworklife.com/coaching, and in each episode, my guests and I bring you tips, strategies and stories to help you enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life. How was your last holiday? Did you have the opportunity to switch off completely and forget about work? Or did you find yourself checking emails, maybe taking the occasional work call? And when it came to the end of your break, did you start to experience a sense of dread and foreboding as you contemplated what might be waiting for you on your return? When the purpose of a holiday is to recharge your batteries, how do you make sure that's what you achieve and that you don't come back feeling just as tired as when you left? To answer these questions and more, I am delighted to be joined this week by Dr Elaine Smith, a clinical psychologist with over 15 years' experience working in mental health. Elaine focuses on workplace well-being, supporting leaders and organisations to reduce stress, prevent burnout and build compassionate, high-performing cultures. Elaine, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. I'm going to dive straight in with what might be a slightly obvious question, but I don't know whether it is that obvious. What are the benefits of entirely switching off from work when you're on holiday? Well, yeah, seems obvious, but actually, I don't think it's fully appreciated by people. So, there's the mental recovery, so our mental and physical health is impacted also by ongoing stress, so we can get mental rest and, I think, separation. It's like distance from work that I think is really important when we're away, physical and mental distance. When we're on holiday, there's also that feeling that, hopefully, we'll achieve, at least at some point in the holiday, where we feel less stressed, we feel more relaxed. We know that we sleep better, that feeling when you go to bed, and you don't have to put the alarm on, if you're fortunate enough, that's a lovely feeling. And when I think about this topic, too, it brings me back to, it's almost like the night before your day off is almost better than the day off itself. Right? Even just that sense of having that free time is very relaxing for people. The other thing that holidays and time away from work offer in abundance, when it's done well, is a change of perspective. So, when we come away from the daily grind, we see the world, we see ourselves, we see the people around us in a different light. So, I think that is really, really important. I think, it makes sense, we might come on to this later as well, that that's why people often have new ideas, they feel more creative when they're away from work. Because we find our identities less wrapped up in work, we might do more joyful activities, and when we feel more relaxed, it gives our brain space for creativity. Which is sometimes why people think, 'Oh, what do I really want to do with my life? Or, oh, what's that new hobby I want to try? Or what's that new book I want to read?' Which just doesn't happen when they don't have that mental space in the normal working week. So, just on that point about new perspective and creativity, the thing that comes to mind immediately for me is that you might have a creative thought, but it might be a creative thought about work. And I'm wondering if that then starts to defeat the object and whether that's something to guard against. Interesting. I think it's okay, as long as we can ring fence that. So, if you have a way of, okay, if you're the type of person who often, people who are in high-performing jobs, a lot of the time they will go back to problem solving or thinking about work, it's okay to have those thoughts, maybe just to jot them down. I always say, have the notebook, have the notes on your phone, jot it down and try to ring fence that time thinking about it. I think it's okay, though, because as long as it's not bringing you stress, we can't completely switch our brains off that way, it's not exactly how it works. But what can also happen is that that creativity, depending on how much the person does switch off from work, that creativity can reappear, the creativity you bring back to work can appear when you return to work. It doesn't always have to be that immediate creativity, it can just be that sense of relaxation and separation from work that can allow us to see things in a slightly different light. Whereas if we're so in something, we can't really see always what's going on. Whereas when we come away from it, we have a renewed perspective and think, 'My goodness, why were we doing it that way? I see a completely different way now.' And sometimes that's just because you step away. And that tip on the notebook is actually quite useful, because you kind of acknowledge that, yes, you may well have some thoughts about work, and so you're not defeating the purpose by having a notebook there, if its purpose is to jot down those ideas so it gets them out of your head, and so you're not going to be thinking, 'Oh, I must remember that, I must remember that', and then you keep on thinking about it. Yeah, absolutely. And I say the notebook tip for people that wake up in the night and think about work as well, or any worries actually. There's a lot of research about the therapeutic process of that and how effective that can be to get it in some way out of our head or feel organised or feel like we don't have a pressure to retain that information as an internal to-do list. If we write it down, that can really help our stress levels as well. And I talk about that in the course I wrote, Holiday Headspace is about how to effectively take your annual leave and make the most of it. And one of my tips in that is to have like a worry meeting with yourself, 10 minutes a day, and just say that's the time I'm going to do it. Whether it's first thing in the morning, for some people, it's more effective in the evening because bed is when a lot of these thoughts can arise, and say, 'Look, I'm going to give myself some time to worry about it or to think about work and the day, to be realistic, but I'm going to decide when that time is, and I'm going to try to stick to that.' So, I think people find that very effective. Is that something that you advocate people do habitually? So, for 10 minutes, when you first wake up or whenever you do it, that is what you're going to do, or is it kind of like a big red button, a break in case of emergency kind of exercise? No, I think habitually, actually, it's something I do recommend, because a lot of strategies we use and, certainly, I recommend as a clinical psychologist, we try to avoid a lot of panic button ones, because I think then we just associate that with panic, rather than it being, no, it's okay, this isn't a panic situation, this is just a way of managing my mental health, this is a way of managing work stress. And realistically, most people will have some worries each day. And I think by saying that's okay, it takes away the stigma off that, rather than only being for a panic situation. Because we're human, of course, we're going to have some kind of worries we can jot down each day. But people do generally quite like the idea of giving it a time, rather than it dominating our day or our week. You've touched a bit on this already, and we'll come on to more techniques for prepping to get there, but assuming that you've done this, air quotes, 'right', what can you kind of expect to feel or expect to feel or expect to feel differently? When you're on holiday? When you're on holiday, yeah. I think you can just feel that weight lifted. It has to feel different to your regular day-to-day at home. So, you feel like work's taken care of, because you've prepped enough, which we're going to talk a bit about. You know that, no matter what, it will be okay. Okay, stuff might happen when you're calm, but will be okay. And also, you're present on that holiday. And that, for at least the majority of the holiday or your time off, you are not counting down back to work, which we know can happen. I mean, it can happen from day one of somebody being off work, on leave. And I don't think that's particularly healthy, but I can see why it's happened. I've had it myself. But when we're really in the moment, we're just really enjoying ourselves or having that pleasant time that we're not usually thinking about going back to work, in the best-case scenario, until maybe a couple of days before, then naturally, people will. I think that's completely normal. It's about how you make the best use of whatever amount of time that you have off. And that's an important point there, isn't it? Maybe people have in mind this perfect aspiration, but it's more about just doing the best you can or trying to get to a place where you're in a better position on holiday than you would be if you were basically still at work. Yeah, I think that concept of good enough, that's not going to be perfect. And that is okay. If you feel like, oh, sometimes I think about work, I'm doing it wrong, you're not. You're just a human. Work's likely a big part of your life, and that's an important part of your life, and we're not shying away from that. But there's other things in your life that, I'm sure, bring a lot of meaning as well. And often that's spending time with loved ones or in a favourite place, doing a favourite activity. And the reason this topic's really important for me is because I think people spend so much time investing in going on holiday. So, time to prepare, time both at home and at work, but also, it costs a lot of money, really a lot of money now to go on holiday. So, I don't want people to feel like they're more stressed when they return, when we're doing it wrong, if that's happening. And I was kind of inspired to write about this topic because I just felt like so many clients would tell me that going off on holiday was causing them stress. And anecdotally, in my personal life, you hear it all the time. I have so much to do, and then I'm dreading going back to work. And is it worth it? Is it worth going on holiday? I've heard that many times. Well, it definitely should be. We need to make it so that it's worth you going on holiday, and it's worth it for you, and it's worth it for the business as well. Do you find that people get a bit stressed, not just about the prepping for it and what might be waiting on the return, but actually, whilst you're there. So, you know, things like, 'Oh, I've got fussy kids, where are they going to eat?' You start researching literally every review on TripAdvisor for the city that you're visiting. And what places should we visit? What apps do I need? Let's get on top of public transport. And I mean, maybe that's just me, but I tend to start researching things to the n-th degree, including holidays, which I guess kind of can be helpful to a point, but then it gets counterproductive. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really common with Internet now. It's just at the tip of a finger. Before, all you had was like a handbook for Paris or something like that, which people often didn't read. But now, it's so tempting, I guess. And I guess the point you've made as well is like, where's that tipping point? Where's the balance between when that's helpful to have some idea of what's going on to meet the needs of the people that you're going with, versus when it actually becomes more stressful? Because often, when we're over preparing for anything, that's due to anxiety. So, when we find ourselves prep, prep, prepping, that's because we're feeling a bit worried about it, it's a lot of unknowns, that's what holiday can bring, especially if it's somewhere new. Which is often, I think, why some people like to return to the same place year after year, especially if they go with children, because they know what to expect, they feel like they can dive straight into their holiday without checking everything out. I mean, obviously, some things might have changed, but there's that we like familiarity as well. So, when we're faced with the newness of a holiday, for some people that can create some anxiety. So, it's knowing how much research helps you, versus hinders you, and it starts giving you a headache when you keep looking things up. And when it comes to getting to that more relaxed, more present state, would you say that it's quite common to have like a bit of lead in time? So, maybe the first day or two, I mean, something that I've experienced is kind of almost like, I don't know, like I sort of get stressed about the most ridiculously small decisions when I'm first there. And it's almost like a brain fog. It's like, where are we going to go for lunch? I don't know. Where are we going to go for lunch? I almost find, the analogy I use, it's kind of like a deceleration. You suddenly decelerate so quickly that your body's going, 'Whoa, what just happened there?' Is that common, or is that just me? I think that's common. I mean, we're having to adjust to a new state. And yeah, I think there is a time, it takes some time to do that, to go from our high stressed, maybe daily everyday life, to coming into the holiday mode. But that's why I also think that even some of these principles around going on leave or taken any time off work, I'd love people to apply them to any time they're not at work. So, evenings or weekends, depending on their working pattern. So, it's not just about those weeks in the year when you're going on holiday, it's being able to detach even in smaller chunks from work. And if you practise that throughout the year, this isn't like, 'Whoa, I'm going off now.' This is like, okay, I do this in a micro way every evening or every time I leave work. I do this in a micro way every weekend to try and create that restful environment so that we're not just reserving these practises for when you go on leave. That's just a time when people will maybe feel like they benefit more because they're going on a week or a two-week holiday. I'm really glad you said that. And I want to come on to some of those practises that will be relevant not just for when you're on holiday, but also for evenings, weekends, that kind of thing. But let's first talk about prepping for the holiday. I mean, what are some of the things that you can do before your one week, two weeks off, both practically and also mentally? I think it's about, obviously, you don't want to leave total chaos behind. Nobody does, right? So, you need to have all the need-to-do tasks done, but accept that you can't have everything done. I mean, your to-do list is never going to be done. I'm imagining, for most people, that's something we have to accept. So, it's about delegating tasks to colleagues or whoever while you're away. Obviously, that's very job dependent. And also, communicating, communicating really clearly to colleagues, maybe to clients, it depends, on anything that needs to happen or that will be happening when you're gone. Obviously, there doesn't have to be absolute micro detail. This just has to be, if you think of this on a need-to-know, not a nice-to-know. Right? Because we don't want to give ourselves so much prep to do. So, you really need to look after the headlines. Often, when people go on leave, there's not somebody there doing their whole job. There might be people there to pick up what's needed, and that's what you're going to have to probably focus on, what's needed when you're gone. So, that's prioritising anything before you go, accepting you can't control everything, and say no to things before you go perhaps, as well, if that's going to be unrealistic for you to achieve before you go on holiday. Because people can pile things on, knowing that you're going. That's quite common. I know they're away in two days, I need to get them to do this before they go. That might just not be possible, especially if you've got 10 people asking you that. I know that I've definitely been guilty of that before. Asking people if they can look at something just before they go away. Practically, when's a good time to start putting this in train? Because I'm guessing there's going to be a temptation of thinking, 'Oh yeah, I'll do that later, I'll do that later, I'll do that later.' And then, suddenly, it's the day before you're due to go away, and you haven't done any of this. I think, start it a little while before you think you should. So, yeah, before the day before. I suppose it's difficult to say without knowing the exact role, but a week or two is great. Give yourself the time. We're basically trying to train other people here about our boundaries and our ways of working and what we need to do for the rest. So, we need to prep them, and we need to communicate with them, and that'll help clear your mind every time you go to do that. And that way, it'll help clear your mind in the two-week run up before you do go and leave, or the one-week run up, whatever you choose. But yeah, do it way before last minute. That's my advice. It'll feel good. You mentioned boundaries there, which is definitely a topic I want to explore. And I'm thinking of these organisations where there is an always-on culture, where implicitly, or sometimes even explicitly, there's an expectation that you're not really going on a holiday, you're not going to be completely uncontactable. You'll be checking emails, you'll be dealing with anything that's urgent, because it's not fair to expect other people to do it, and you're the lead person on this particular project. Yeah, how do you deal with that kind of thing? One part of this is cultural, the other part of this is, we like to be needed. It can make us feel important. Which can be quite rewarding for us. Mostly, that's personality and person specific, but it's definitely a common theme. So, we need to be the one who makes the change sometimes. So, it might look like everybody's going along with this, and obviously, there are very few jobs that require you to check stuff while you're on holiday. We're thinking about what's really necessary in life. There are very few jobs where we're needed that much, I think. Okay. I'm sure lots of people would debate that, right? But back in the olden days before the Internet, people used to go on holiday, and they didn't check in because they couldn't. Okay? And a phone call would really be an emergency. It just wasn't as easy back then. And we managed. So, sometimes I use that as the benchmark, being lucky enough to have lived during that time as well. So, I think sometimes you have to be the one to set that boundary. And it's okay to say, unless it's in your contract specifically that you check emails while you're on holiday, you're well within your rights to say,'I'm not going to be checking my emails while I'm on holiday." Unless, and I know sometimes there's one big thing happening, if that's the case, if there's something really important happening while you're away, really exciting even, it's not going to be a stressful thing, you could negotiate one check-in, if you have to. Right? I know I'm going to shut a lot of people down here if I say no, never. Right? So, I think if you're going to have a check-in or check-in emails, everything needs to be explicitly agreed beforehand, in terms of when you'll check and how many times you'll check and why you'll check. But I think there's very few times that's actually necessary, and I really encourage people to be able to say, 'I won't be checking my emails.' Because that's what leave is for, and we need to re-evaluate, I think, what's really important sometimes. Practically agreed with whom? So, I'm just thinking of a past role where I could get communication coming in from left, right, centre, all over the place. And let's say that line management was relatively relaxed. So, agreeing that kind of thing with the line manager doesn't feel like it would be practical. And what I would do in most cases would, in my out of office, say, 'Contact my PA in the first instance', or something like that. So, yeah, I mean, how far and wide should you create this expectation and do it in a way which isn't making you look difficult? I think it's only really if a boss is insistent that you do check in, and there's something to check in for that you think is important as well, that it can only really be explicitly agreed with somebody who's line managing you or close. This is not, I don't mean this for, you're out of office. Oh, I might be checking this time, I might be, I'll be checking at this time, because people are just going to email you then, people are going to get in touch. I think this is only if there's something very specific. That's why I would reserve this type of boundary for if you're going to be checking in while you're from holiday. For the vast majority of people, that doesn't need to happen, in my opinion. So, specifically, when there's a project going on, rather than, no, you need to check just in case something urgent hasn't come up. Yeah, I would definitely advise against the just in case. That's just feeding our anxiety, that's feeding our what-if beliefs. What if something bad happens? And I don't think that's fair on anybody who's on leave. And I think that really disrupts our nervous system as well. If we know that that's going to happen, we're not going to be able to relax as fully as we would if we know we don't have to have any contact with work for the whole time that we're off. I think it's a very different dynamic. And when it's explicit, so you've got a boss who says that they are expecting you to, say, check your emails daily, not because you are working on anything in particular. So, you've either handed over everything satisfactorily, or you've put to bed any large projects like that, but you've still got a boss who says, 'No, no, I'm expecting you to check your emails daily.' I think it warrants a really honest conversation, and it might be tricky. You know, I'm not skimming over that. I just think that it's not a good leadership practise. I think it's an unrealistic expectation, and I think it's unfair on people, and I don't think there's any winners from it. I'm quite explicit about this. I just do not think that's a positive way forward. So, I think, in that case, and I guess it goes with a person's gut instinct as well, I would imagine a lot of people who have been asked to do that will feel slight unease. And if you do feel unease about it, I always recommend that people speak up. And the thing that happens when one person speaks up about this is it can have a snowball effect. Because, for sure, you're not the only person who might think, 'Oh, I don't know about this.' Go home, tell their partner, and they go, 'That's not right. But you're on holiday.' And I think there'll just be a little bit of a snowball effect of, actually, that's how we change culture as well. And sometimes you have to lead that, you have to lead that change. And it's a brave thing to do, and it's a courageous thing to do, but there's a real danger if we all just say yes to everything when unrealistic expectations are placed on us. I'm starting to think of brave in, here's one for the kids, the sort of Jim Hacker, 'Yes, Prime Minister" kind of sense where his civil servant would say, 'Oh, that's a very brave decision", meaning that's a very foolish decision. There's going to be people listening to this who think, 'No, hang on, if my boss explicitly says this, and my boss is not for turning, and I don't do it, then kicking up a fuss about this is just going to be career suicide.' That's what people are going to think. So, help that person out, please. Well, you've got to think about your own well-being and the culture that you're in, and you've got to look after yourself first. And you're well within your rights to have your leave, unless there's something specifically written in your contract, and your organisation also has a duty to care about your well-being. So, as far as I'm aware, that's enough to go on. And sometimes for people, what we say about leave is, if you can't do it for yourself, do it for the people that you care about. And sometimes that's the easiest way for people to change their perspective. So, if you think about it, if you get that time completely off with no checking in at all from work, it's not just about how you benefit, it's about how those loved ones or the people that you might be with also benefit. Because sometimes people can't do it enough for themselves, especially if people have children. You can say,'Okay, well, do it for them.' And that can sometimes be the way that they see it differently. Because I do understand this is difficult. I'm not saying it's just really easy to go and say this to whoever your boss is, especially if they have high expectations, but sometimes we need to take a stand, and I think that's really important, especially when cultures are unhealthy. And you mentioned the out of office. Some people will just say, 'I'm on holiday, if your query is urgent, please contact this person.' I'm sure I've seen out of offices which say, 'I might take a little bit longer to respond', which is setting an expectation that they may still respond whilst they're on holiday. What's the ideal or the recommended out of office message? Again, it comes back to these themes about being really clear in your communication and setting out exactly the dates you're gone, and also saying,'I will not be', recommended, 'I will not be checking my emails when I'm on leave during these dates', say it out entirely clearly. Bullet points are sometimes good to make sure people can see it all. And also, I recommend that people say something along the lines of, 'When I return, please allow two or three working days, whatever it is, for me to reply to my emails, because it's likely I'm going to have a bit of a backlog as well.' Because then you're setting up, and this is about returning to work as well, that you really slow that process of returning to work and manage those expectations as well. Because otherwise, what we risk is that dread of going back, because you've booked in all these meetings you thought were a great idea, 'Oh, I'll do it the day or two after I come back from my holiday', because you're not there yet, so you make more plans, and then you dread going back to work more. That's one of the things about returning to work as well. So, slowing that down. So, in your out of office, setting out those expectations really clearly and unapologetically as well. Because people actually like clarity, and people like boundaries. People would prefer you say, 'I won't be checking my emails. You can expect to get a reply two or three days after I get back.' Instead of a false promise actually or lesser quality answer or whatever while you're on holiday, because you're not in work mode, you're not there. There's also slight risk in that, I think. So, yeah, just be clear. Very, very clear. And there's going to be a fear element here, isn't there, I mean, when you write any kind of communication. I've certainly always been paranoid about how it's going to be taken. But it is often paranoia and fearing the worst, rather than it being a definite. So, as you say, if you are clear, some people will probably appreciate that, rather than thinking, 'That Jeremy is a bit of a slacker, isn't he?' Exactly. I think we all appreciate clarity far more than we think. And we also often imagine that people have higher expectations of us than they actually do, and that everybody expects an immediate reply. I mean, they could be emailing 20 or 30 people in that day. You're not probably the only one. So, just thinking about it in that way that we often think about ourselves and our world a lot more than other people do, which can be quite nice in terms of easing our anxiety a little bit. But yeah, you can have a friendly and you can have a professional tone, it can be both. And also, I have seen, there's a bit of a growing trend, I think, I'm not really into trends, but I think this is quite nice, is that people inject a bit more personality into their out of office emails. Of course, that comes down to individual personality. It can come down to company culture and what the policy may be. But I've seen people say about sipping, 'I'm sipping my cocktail on the beach or whatever, so I won't be able to answer.' And you know, I've always read them and thought I quite like that. There might be people who don't, of course, but there's a balance, because we are all human. People do want to go on holiday to have a good time, so we shouldn't be ashamed of that. We shouldn't think that's a bad thing and be apologetic for being on the beach sipping a cocktail. Whether or not you put that in your out of office is entirely up to you, but I quite like that idea of being entirely human as well. One of my favourite out of offices that I've seen was from a very senior and comparatively straight-laced barrister whose out of office said something along the lines of, 'My wife is taking away my BlackBerry.' So, you can see how long ago it was. 'My wife is taking away my BlackBerry, and so I won't be checking emails.' And I thought that was absolutely brilliant. Love it. Yeah, it's like that human element is a bit different. It's funny, it's a straight message as well. It's very clear. So, yeah, I just think being human, being clear, you know, it's a thing. I think we predict that people are going to have some kind of reaction to us when we do that. But most often, I think it's positive. Let's dive a bit more into the mental side, because a lot of this is going to be driven by, I think, a combination of fear, but also something you'd touched on earlier, this feeling of liking to feel a little bit important. Oh, no, I've got to check my emails just in case there is something. So, yeah, what's the psychology behind this, and how can you start to untell those stories and undo those habits? Yeah, I think there's definitely fear that something bad might happen. There's also a lot of habit involved in checking as well. I mean, the statistics are constantly changing and coming out about how many times we, say, check our phone in a day or check our email in a day, that are staggering. How many hours people spend online a day scrolling. So, that's very habitual. So, we're having to break habits, which is difficult. And also, that mindset, I guess, is replacing that need to feel important with finding that new joy, finding that new connection with whatever you're doing or whoever you're with on that holiday as well. So, for example, when you first get up in the morning, that need to check, think about what's going on in the day, and maybe getting suited and booted for work, instead of doing that, what you're doing is you're going to do another activity. So, you're going to either have a very slow, whatever, if you like tea or coffee in the morning, or you're going to go for a walk, you're going to do something maybe for 15 minutes to break that cycle. Because it's a lot about habit. Yeah, you need to interrupt that, and obviously, there's a lot about turning your notifications off and having the practical sense, but it's really using your mind to focus on where you are, what you're doing, and seeking the joy in that and changing that narrative in your head. Work's important, but it's not my whole life. Because clearly, you're often something else. Whether you're at home on leave, or you're on an actual holiday, you're exploring other avenues of your life that are also important. Can you talk a bit more about habit and breaking those habits? It's something that I know that I'm guilty of. Say I'm taking a breather, and it's, oh, have a look at the phone, and then start cycling through whatever social media apps you've got there. So, let's have a look at Facebook, and let's have a look at X, and let's have a look at Instagram. Yeah, definitely. Pretty established habits that most of us are in now. So, one aspect of that is, of course, it's a cycle of, okay, so you're checking work email, okay, let's just say somebody's checking their work email, because often they want to see that either something has happened that they want to happen, or something hasn't, something bad hasn't happened. Okay, so basically, what I'm saying is they're checking email to ease their anxiety. And we know that in the short term, you check your email, there's nothing bad, or good things happened, it eases your anxiety in that moment, and then, obviously, that means that we are encouraged, that's a reward. So, we keep on that cycle. So, every, whatever, probably quite a short time frame, every half hour, every hour, people are checking, and they're like, 'Oh, but this feels good, this does its job.' And it only does its job in the very, very short term, and it feeds our habit. So, what we need to do is, we need to break that, learn that that's actually probably making our anxiety worse. So, it's maybe taking longer breaks between checking. We don't always have to go cold, although I would recommend this in the period running up to holiday. So, you're constantly trying to lengthen the time between checking your email, say in the evenings or at the weekends, as a practise, and getting to the point where you realise that, actually, that's much better for your anxiety levels. Because that constant checking just feeds the anxiety cycle. But we don't believe it at the time, because we're rewarded in that moment, if that makes sense. Yeah. And something that I've found, so it's less checking emails, but I think it's sort of related, like seeking that dopamine hit. So, let's just see if anyone's posted anything new and interesting on X, even though you literally checked 15 minutes ago. And one thing I've found is, say we decide to have a quiet afternoon, go back to the apartment, daughter watches some random TV and then, my wife and I are doing something else, reading a book or whatever, and it's almost like a restless feeling, which you start to resolve by, oh, you know, I'll just have another quick look at social media. I mean, how can you break that? And I'm thinking in particular of the restless, almost like a restless, I don't know what else to do feeling. Yeah, it's resisting that urge, isn't it? And I think we've lost the ability to be bored. I think that when you see, sometimes I see those memes or whatever online about how we used to read the pack of the cereal packet or look out the window on the bus. Very recently, my phone ran out of battery, I had a whole bus journey without a phone, and it was quite enlightening about, obviously, seeing how much everybody else was on their phone, but how it changes our attention, and how I looked out the window and saw things I'd never seen on this bus journey I'd been on probably hundreds of times. So, it is about resisting that urge and thinking it's okay just to sit and let your mind wander. And that's where the creativity can come from as well, it's about being able to tell yourself the benefits of that. Okay, it feels a bit restless, it feels a bit uncomfortable, but it is just about practising as well. Because if we go back to the urge and the scrolling, nothing's going to change. I think what you're saying is that what a lot of people feel is they don't want to spend hours scrolling their phone every day. They don't want that. Yes, you get the dopamine hit. Yes, people enjoy it. You might find out something interesting. But is it worth three hours in the evening of scrolling? And do you get enough from that? Probably not. So, again, it's about the courage just to make that change and to have that narrative in your head, this is good for me to feel a bit restless. It's actually good for me to feel a little bit bored and unsure, because I'm breaking a habit while I'm feeling this. Because if you go with the urge, you're not going to feel that. Okay, so there's definitely an awareness piece. You develop that awareness that this is what you want to do. But then, once you've got that awareness, what are some of the things that you can say to yourself so that you don't, even when you're aware of it, go, 'Go on then'? Yeah, it's about the meaning it has for you. It's finding personal meaning in that. So, saying I'm going to do something different because I want to protect my mental well-being, or I want to use this time to do a bit more physical exercise, or I want to spend more time with my family, with my children. What is it you want to do instead with that time as well? It needs to have meaning for us, in order for us to make a change as well. And sometimes it has to be tangible for people to motivate us to make a change, when it's so easy to slip back into something as well. And again, it's a little bit like having the worry meeting. It's like, okay, have your social media time. We're not saying you have to take it all away. But often for people as well, they find having a time, and then a time slotted for having the scrolling and allocated to it, so say, 15 minutes or 30 minutes, and I'm done. Rather than what happens to people, of course, and the way the algorithms work is that time can pass so very, very quickly, and we get pulled into all different directions of things that it knows we're interested in. They're very sneaky. And then, we just find that we can't put our phone down. So, I think it's about ring fencing that time, setting a timer, saying to a partner, 'Tell me when my time's up.' It's all about being practical, and it's a personal boundary, the boundary around your social media. Yeah. And tech can help you, actually, I've recently been using an app called ScreenZen, which you set it for a time. So, I got mine for seven minutes, and then after seven minutes, it kind of says, 'That's your lot, unless you click a button.' So you've actually got to consciously go,'No, I want to carry on reading this.' That's pretty effective, I've found. That sounds brilliant. I must have a look at that. Yeah, I think, tech, I always say that about tech, about the Internet, it's as much we can allow it to be excellent and aid our life, as much as we can allow it to be in some way damaging and do us some kind of disservice, I guess, in our lives as well. And that's up to us to manage that. It can also do wonderful things. Let's just touch on the return to work and the dreaded post-holiday blues. So, if you've set everything up, you've got your out of office to set expectations, you haven't put in meetings for those few days when you get back, is there anything else that you can do in particular on your return to minimise that, 'Oh, I want to be back by the pool again.'? Yeah. I call it having like an inbox priority party. Because most people, for a lot of people anyway, the emails are the thing, the first thing they think about, because you're going to feel bombarded and sometimes overwhelmed. So, you need to prioritise them, or you need to categorise them into urgent emails, ones that you need to delegate, sometimes it's just a case of forwarding on, which is a nice feeling as well, and ones that can be delayed. Because often it's not something urgent. Okay, the person might pitch in an urgent way, but you have to categorise them into those three. And again, remember, you've already given yourself two or three days, you've set a window when you get back, whatever you set, to get back to these people. So, you've got your annual leave plus this window when you get back. So, you're reducing that expectation. So, that's one way to manage your emails. And also, I mean, it depends if you've got that many, make sure you take breaks in between that as well. And that's what I say, have supporting rituals when you get back, make sure you're taking your breaks, make sure you're doing your exercise as normal. So, what we don't want at all is for somebody to be in that period of rest and leave and go into this extreme full day at work, not taking a lunch break or forgetting to have a drink of water, because they're so anxious about getting stuck in. We don't want to undo some of that lovely soothed nervous system, and also create these expectations or feed into a culture that would think that's a good thing, right? So, we want to slow down those first couple of days back to work. So, do your exercise, eat well, take your breaks, take regular breaks, make sure, especially when the work's very intense sometimes when you get back, and if you're in person, maybe it's about booking out, say if you're in an open plan office, booking a meetings room to give yourself a little bit of space. I know sometimes people will do that as well. Because the likelihood is, even if it's the most well-meaning and a lovely place to work, if you have 10 people coming up and asking you how your holiday was, right, it's going to take up quite a lot of your day. And it's not that we want to be antisocial, I definitely don't want to discourage those lovely conversations at work, but it's all about, okay, what's the balance and what do you need to have your best return. And for some people, it's booking a separate room. Not for everybody. There's also realistic goals, what I said, wherever you have some control over your diary as well, the temptation for people, you know how if something's in a couple of weeks, we're more likely to say yes to it. We're more likely to agree to stuff that's a bit in the future. I think we've all done that at times, right? So, say you have back-to-back meetings booked in for the first day or two after you come back, you'll come back to work and think, 'That was a bit silly of me. I was a little bit over optimistic about how I would feel when I returned to work.' Usually, people will have a bit of regret about that. So, it's about having really realistic goals. Just bring yourself back to how you'll feel the night before if you have a quite a free diary, where possible. I know some people might think this is a bit unrealistic. You've just been off. Wherever possible, bear these principles in mind. That's really all I can say. I can't speak for every individual organisation or person that might be listening. And yeah, just supporting yourself through it, being healthy, not thinking, 'Oh, I have to, I can't have a lunch break today because I've been off.' No, you're entitled to your leave. You don't get punished for coming back. So, it's just changing mindset around that as well. Elaine, this has all been super helpful. As we record this, I'm actually just about to go on holiday myself, so I'm definitely to going to be taking some of these practises, really trying to take some of these practises to that. Before we hit record, you mentioned a practise which people might find quite helpful. Can you go into that a little bit? Yes. So, progressive muscle relaxation, also known as PMR, is something I was introduced to when I was about 10 years old. I did a lot of running, and my athletics coach at the time was quite forward thinking, and he introduced it to us as a means of relaxing before our races. I was quite a hard child to relax, or I didn't often easily feel relaxed, and it was the first time I thought, 'Wow, this really works.' So, I love using it in my practise, and I introduce it to lots of clients as well. And it's easy to do yourself. So, I'm going to share a resource that people can just click. It's basically tensing and relaxing all of your muscles, your major muscles anyway, from head to toe in your body, and it just has a really lovely effect. And it's definitely something that's helped me and many clients over the years. So, I hope it's helpful for people when they're preparing to go on their holiday, using it when they're on holiday. It's ideal when you're lying there sunbathing as well. Practise it. The other thing about it is, please start to practise it when you're already feeling quite relaxed. It is not a panic button, emergency type of resource. You know, we want to associate it with feeling relaxed, not with feeling panicked. And where should people go to find you and the course that you mentioned? Yes, it's on drelainesmith.com, and you'll find it under online courses there. And yeah, they can go and grab the course, and it's 30 minutes. So, it's a small financial investment and a small time investment. Make the most of what is often very expensive and energy costly activity of going on holiday. Terrific. Elaine, thank you so much. This has been a really helpful conversation. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Thank you. Okay, hope you enjoyed that interview with Elaine Smith. I interviewed Elaine the day before I went away for my summer holiday, and it really couldn't have come at a better time. Even though I'm now self-employed and running my own business, I still feel this compulsion on a daily basis to check my work emails. And not just that, but to look at various other platforms. So, to look at X, to check the groups I'm in on Telegram, to look at Facebook. This time, I decided to try to implement Elaine's advice, and I'd say that I worked pretty hard to relax, if that makes sense. Those feelings of temptation definitely arose, but I'm pleased to say I managed to resist it. I think I managed to avoid checking my emails pretty much the whole time I was away. And whereas I'll usually cycle through those social media platforms I mentioned, I also avoided that. And yes, it felt weird, and at times, it felt weirdly difficult, but it worked. It really helped me to feel more relaxed. And I think sometimes subjecting yourself to more rules, to more guidelines, can actually be quite good for your mental well-being. When you set yourself a rule that you're going to do or not do something, then it no longer becomes a decision. I could have asked myself the question, 'Oh, shall I just check my emails?' But because I had already set the intention that I wasn't going to, it was no longer a decision. I also followed Elaine's formula when it came to setting my out of office and made it very clear that I wouldn't be checking or replying to emails, and also setting an expectation about when I would be back looking at them. So, before you next go away, do listen back again to this episode, because there's loads of great stuff which, I can tell you, it really helped me to enjoy my holiday. Show notes for this episode are at changeworklife.com/216, that's changeworklife.com/216, and this is definitely an episode worth sharing with friends or family. It's worth remembering that the goal isn't to achieve perfection. You can allow yourself those times to worry about work. But taking those steps to decide what you are and aren't going to do can really help you to frame things. So, if you found this helpful for you, then, I'm telling you, it's going to help other people. So, do please share the episode. The episode in two weeks is for you if you're a technical or subject matter expert. You know your stuff inside out, and you're the person that people come to if ever they've got any questions around your area of expertise. But what's the impact that's having on your career? Is being known as the technical expert preventing your advancement? What can you do to grow and to avoid being pigeonholed for the whole of your career? It's going to be a really interesting interview, so subscribe to the show if you haven't already, and I can't wait to see you next time. Cheers. Bye.