The Firstbeat Guide to Ultimate Summer Self-Care!
Whether you’re taking a staycation or jetting off abroad, working from home or commuting to the office over the summer months, we’ve compiled some of our best tips from our blog by our well-being specialists to create this ultimate summer self-care guide!
Read on to discover our top tips for:
- Tackling jet lag and supporting healthy travel
- Surviving work during a heatwave
- How to recharge your batteries during summer
- Making the most of your holiday without becoming exhausted
- How to sleep better during the summer
5 Tips to Fight Jet Lag and Support Healthy Travel
1. Follow the daily rhythm of the time zone you are in
Get up in the morning and do your best not to sleep during the day during the initial ‘jet lag days’. Early bedtime is OK; don’t fight against sleep if it’s 9 pm and you are ready to crash.
2. Let the daylight work for you
Open the curtains when you get up and spend time outdoors during the day whenever possible.
3. Boost your natural melatonin production
Create a dark environment and avoid bright lights/electronics before bedtime. If desired, take extra melatonin 30-60 mins before bed.
4. Log some physical activity every day
Do some sightseeing on foot, use the hotel gym or pool, rent a bike. Keep the intensity low and comfortable, but getting your muscles working and heart rate up really helps!
5. Remember healthy nutrition and hydration
During flights, stick to familiar food (bring it with you if needed; instant oatmeal packs are a great standby!), drink a lot of water, avoid alcohol and excessive caffeine. We know that alcohol reduces restorative sleep dramatically, and since jet lag does the same, minimizing alcohol during the initial days of the trip is a no-brainer.
Read the full article here: Tips for Beating Jet Lag: Using Data and Common Sense to Support Healthy Travel - Firstbeat
Top Tips to Maintain Work Productivity and Recovery During A Heatwave
Stay Hydrated at All Times
Drinking enough water is always important, but it is even more so when you’re holed up in a 30+ degree office or working under the hot sun all day. Drinking water replenishes the fluids lost when sweating and you leave yourself open to the dangers of dehydration if you don’t get enough. These can include dizziness, headaches and feeling confused and disorientated.
Keep a chilled water bottle with you when working at all times. Keep drinking and topping it up even when you don’t feel thirsty and you should stave off dehydration and its unwanted side effects.
Enjoy Post-Work Drinks in Moderation
Being stuck in the office all day, only catching a glimpse of the sun through the window can mean the prospect of a quick drink (or two) after work can be tough to turn down. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with meeting up with friends to enjoy the heatwave, it is important to remember a few things if you want to recover overnight and be energized for the morning after.
Drinking alcohol can put you on the fast track to dehydration, so make sure to order a pint of water with your beer at the bar. And try to stay within moderation. Research using the Firstbeat database has shown that even a small amount of alcohol can push back the start of recovery during sleep.
Sleeping Right is Important
After a long day at work and a hot commute back home in the sun, a good night’s sleep is important in order to maintain your physical and mental strength and, therefore, your ability to perform the next day. Unfortunately, the heat can often lead to a restless night and put pay to the best-laid plans. There are, though, a few things you can try to give yourself the best chance of overnight recovery.
Keep the bedroom curtains closed throughout the day to keep the sunlight out and the room (hopefully) a little cooler. If possible, wear thin cotton fabrics to sleep in – they let the skin breathe more effectively. And, on the more extreme end of the scale, you can try chilling your bed sheets by putting them in a bag and then the freezer for a few minutes!
Remember to Stay Active
The hot weather does mean the traditional excuses of ‘bad weather’ can’t be used to put off doing outdoor exercise or activities during your free time. And physical exercise has been proven time and again to boost well-being and have a positive impact on your mood and even work productivity.
With no clouds to be seen, you can confidently put on those running shoes and head for a jog around the park or an evening stroll that you might have put off had it been raining. Just don’t do it during the hottest part of the day!
Read the full article here: Tips to Maintain Work Productivity and Recovery During the Heatwave - Firstbeat
Tips for Recharging Your Batteries and Recovering During the Summer
It’s ok to focus on your needs
Figure out what YOU need the most and plan accordingly. There is no right or wrong way to spend a vacation, and different people benefit from different things, but try to avoid too many schedules and must-do’s. Reality does dictate some things, and it’s usually necessary to compromise and consider others (spouses, kids…), but it’s also ok to be a bit selfish and not forget your own needs!
Fitness and exercise:
“Can’t-let-goers”: If you have a tendency to overdo it, and you follow a strict exercise regimen year around, let your body and mind relax for once and only do what feels right, without goals. Maybe try some new things, even if it’s “just for fun” and has no effect on your maxVO2 or fitness development. Elite athletes need their off-season – so why not you!
“Let-it-sliders”: If you struggle with finding time for exercise or typically feel distressed after the vacation because you left all exercise off the menu, dig out some self-discipline and do some advance planning on how to dedicate the time for some fun fitness activities during your holiday. Go dancing, do some calisthenics, try a new group exercise, go on long walks with family or friends. You will likely feel better after the holiday!
Just ‘Be’
Allow some time for just being! Without guilt. Reading, movies, music, wandering in the woods, hammock time, naps, gazing at the sea or the sunset, listening to the silence … whatever works for you. Our daily lives around the year tend to be so hectic that there is real value in this!
Prioritize recovery and sleep
Vacations often include long days and long nights of fun and a lot of activity, and that’s fine, but make sure you also prioritize some long, peaceful sleeps with no predictable disturbing factors (for example alcohol or stimulants). It’s easier to stock up on sleep and recovery during a vacation than during the working year, so remember to take advantage of it!
Read the full article here: Top 5 Tips for Charging Your Batteries and Recovering During the Summer - Firstbeat
Making the Most of Your Holiday Without Becoming Exhausted
There is no “right way” to vacation – the key is to figure out what works for you and make the most of whatever vacation you have an opportunity to take this year, in your current life situation.
”Making the most”, however, often means fully booked schedules, long travel days, do-it-yourself projects, and long social evenings over drinks. All these activities can be a nice change of pace, but an important goal of vacations – charging your battery and getting away from the hectic nature of working life – might go amiss. Even fun activities can turn into stress if there is too much of it, or if you don’t give yourself a chance to recover.
Basic tips to enjoy a restorative vacation are familiar to most of us:
- Don’t load your vacation with huge expectations
- Avoid over-booking your days
- Reserve time for peaceful being – days when you don’t “accomplish” much are OK!
- Consume alcohol and heavy foods in moderation
- Remember to get enough sleep
However, putting good ideas into practice requires a bit of self-discipline and commitment. You should take a break from your usual routines, but if you turn all routines upside down – from your sleep and other daily rhythms to exercise and nutrition habits – your body starts to rebel. This consumes your resources and energy and you might start experiencing some form of “holiday exhaustion”.
Read the full article here: Tis the Season - for Summer Holidays! How to Recharge Your Battery for an Energizing Comeback - Firstbeat
How to Get Good Quality Sleep
New data published in 2022 from the Firstbeat database revealed that we sleep less during the summertime. Here are some top tips to help you sleep better at night:
If you feel tired but when your head hits the pillow your mind starts racing…
This is a common issue and worth experimenting with to find out what works. Scrolling through work emails in the evening is a bad idea for anyone who recognizes this tendency!
Before bedtime, start slowing down and get ready for sleep with a good routine to “leave the day behind”. Some find it helpful to write a list of what’s ahead the next day to help them get some closure on the day and accept that not everything has to get done now. A perfectionist mind wants to get it all done, but we need to learn to accept our limits. You can also try some activities that help slow your mind down: classical or meditation music, meditation routines, breathing exercises, nature sounds, sleep stories, etc.
If you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep…
Try shifting positions to get comfortable and try not to pay attention to the time. Instead, try to stay relaxed and breathe calmly. If you find yourself tossing and turning for a longer time, getting up to stretch, read, or listening to calm music can help. Prioritizing enough time for sleep means you usually feel well rested, despite the admittedly annoying wakeups.
How do we find our natural rhythm? Does the time we naturally fall asleep define us as ‘owls’ or ‘larks’?
There are questionnaires to help determine your chronotype, but the natural tendency to fall asleep and wake up early or late is a good estimate. The percentage of us that are “morning larks” or “night owls” isn’t set in stone, but some experts suggest that only about 10-15% of us are extreme forms of either type, with the rest somewhere in between.
Trying to follow your natural rhythm improves the odds of getting a good sleep, but real life tends to interfere. Most people’s daily rhythm is set by work, school, and family schedules, which might not match their natural rhythm. But we can make choices that support our natural rhythm. An owl who must wake up early needs to pay attention to their evening routine and avoid the temptation to turn the rhythm on its head over the weekend. A lark should go to bed early, when feeling sleepy, instead of powering through and trying to stay up late. Otherwise, it’s tough to get a long enough sleep if your eyes pop open at 5am!
Read the full article here: How to Get Good Quality Sleep: Your Questions Answered - Firstbeat