Making the most of your Weekend

We will be looking into relaxation as Hardsuit Labs heads into a long weekend.

Sometimes, you can hear around the office and chats on Monday: “I need a weekend to relax from my weekend!” When this happens, the weekend was often used for activities that ended up draining rather than recharging.

That is not to say that draining activity is necessarily bad at all. Garden work, hanging out with friends, or long traveling times to events, camping, or the beach can all eat up both our physical and emotional fortitude.

Those two are also the main factors to consider when using time off to recharge. Exercise is wonderful, but the ensuing physical fatigue can render the relaxation factor down. Thankfully, this can be balanced by adding other stimuli. For example, exercising alone or in a gym is a fantastic workout, but the setting and lack of social interaction reduce how much your other senses get involved. Instead, try to ride a bike along a trail, go hiking, or do sports in a club with other people. By doing this, your brain gets engaged more with different views, scents, or conversations as you also work out your body. This will make the experience feel more balanced overall.

Keep in mind that your body will want some rest after physical work. Relax while reading, practice meditation or yoga, and enjoy time with family or friends while eating or playing games. Avoid alcohol on days with lots of physical exercise to prevent further exhaustion and give yourself a good night’s rest.

But even hanging out with people can cause fatigue. With a holiday coming up, you may want to spend a day feasting with friends or family. Remember that everyone has a ‘social battery’ that will run low. By social battery, we mean your capabilities to handle social situations. That can be anything from heading out to party in the club, having meals with friends and family, all the way to calm evenings over tea and snacks. Each of us has a limited mental capacity to follow and engage in conversation, read social cues, and share our personal bubble. While it might not be obvious exhaustion at first, your mental exhaustion can rise to levels where you might need more time for yourself to recover.

Thankfully, you can make your free time feel more productive and restful with some tricks.

Head into your weekend with clear ideas. If you have a plan on what you’d like to do during your weekend and when you’d like to do it will prevent frustration or feelings of having wasted your precious time off. Even when the goal is to do ‘nothing at all’, there will be things we want to do. Hang out with friends or family, read something entertaining or educating, or have a cool drink in the shade while looking at the clouds outside; these are not necessarily productive but can still be planned for a lovely weekend.

Start your day early. This doesn’t have to mean getting out bright and early at 0500 but getting up as your normally would for work has benefits. It might be immensely tempting to sleep in on the weekend – seeing we don’t have to get up early on days off. However, it can make you feel like time has been wasted. By starting the day off early, you’ll feel like you have taken advantage of the day a lot more and might even fit smaller tasks into the day you hadn’t considered before.

Don’t cramp your schedule. Even though we just mentioned not making us feel like we waste time, this does not mean your weekend should be booked back-to-back. Plan for 2-3 significant events during each of your days off but give yourself enough time around those to just let yourself enjoy not having to stress over obligations.

Take care of emotional connections. Call a family member or text a friend. Reach out to people you may not have talked to in a while and let them know you’re thinking of them. The slight boost to our emotional well-being can enrich our days immensely, and you might even make plans for an upcoming weekend to spend some quality time, too!

Stretch and exercise a bit. Unless you want to join our team for marathons or Tough Mudder competitions, this does not even need to be a whole lot. Setting some time aside just to feel your muscles work in some way releases stress-fighting hormones that might have built up, enhancing the day. Even a nice walk around your neighborhood can accomplish this!

Enter the week with new plans. Sometimes we have a cloud hanging over the final day of our time off, dreading the emails and work that will be found come Monday, for example. It can help soothe the mind to go into any unpleasant or dull task with a plan. As such: Make a plan for your first day back in the office. Slate time to review emails and tackle emergency tasks and everyday tasks. Review any meetings you might need to prepare for or need attention before addressing crucial matters. And once you have this plan – forget about work for the rest of your day off! Your mind will be at ease knowing you’re prepared and let you enjoy the remainder of your time off.

We hope everyone will have a great 4th of July weekend, and we will see you all next week!