Why your brain and body needs you to switch off during holidays
Dr Kristy Goodwin, CSP
Neuro-performance scientist | Keynote speaker | Author | Executive Coach | Consultant | Researcher
With end-of-year company shutdowns and holiday periods just around the corner, many of us are dreaming about our upcoming holidays… days spent with not much else to do apart from reading your book and taking a few dips in the ocean.?
And then we remember, we’ll return to work after our holiday to a bulging inbox, 1278 Teams chat messages and we’re instantly filled with dread.
However, as this article will explore, it’s critical that we’re intentional about using the holidays to genuinely rest and recover.? It’s imperative that we use our leave period to digitally disconnect and recharge. The harsh reality is that we cannot outperform our biology and one of our most fundamental human needs is the need for rest and recovery. Your annual leave is a great opportunity to do just this, so you can hit the ground running in 2024.?
Now before you panic, please don’t misconstrue what I’ve written. You don’t need to do a #digitaldetox. Research shows that detoxes don’t yield long-term results[1] and they’re also, if we’re brutally honest, really hard to achieve in a world where we’ve become digitally-dependent even on our holidays. (I couldn’t imagine trying to order an Uber in a foreign country, convert foreign currencies, or snap holiday photos without my phone.)
Instead, what we need to do is to take some time to switch off from the constant digital onslaught that now permeates our days. We need to turn off Teams’ notifications, turn on our Out-Of-Office message and switch off for a period of time. Your brain and body will thank you.
There’s no denying that the digital intensity of our days has rapidly increased in recent years, resulting in a significant threat to our wellbeing and productivity. Employees are feeling fatigued, anxious, and burnt out, subsequently posing threats to motivation and engagement.?
A study found that 69% of employees are experiencing burnout symptoms and many of these symptoms can be attributed to the digital behaviours and expectations induced by remote work arrangements.[2] A Microsoft report suggested that 39% of workers are feeling exhausted and 54% feel overworked.[3]?To counteract this trend, we need to take a genuine psychological break from our work and digitally disconnecting is vital to this process.
Taking a ‘tech sabbatical’ sounds easy and something many of us aspire to do, but then the reality of doing so sets in and before we know it we’re searching for the one bar of WiFi connection on our holiday just to do a quick triage of our inbox. We start to ask ourselves, can I really unplug? Can I go a whole week (or even a few weeks) without checking my email, Teams/Slack or social media? Will my inbox be brimming with emails when I return to work?
When taking annual leave it’s a time where we (can finally) loosen our grip on emails, where our calendar isn’t chock-a-block full with meetings and where we don’t have looming digital deadlines. It really is an ideal time to unplug and reap the benefits of having a genuine psychological break from the constant digital demands that pepper our modern lives. The key step is in the preparation.
Your brain and body need to psychologically detach from work-
Research from Slack revealed that very few Australians planned on switching off over the summer holiday period in 20222.
Key findings from the study published in December 2022 suggested that:
?????? 8 in 10 employers were expecting employees to keep up with work messages and be available to work during their official time off;
???? 67% of employees said they were going to make themselves available to work during their planned time off; and
?? The main reasons cited were- important tasks or projects that need to move forward (78%); a personal preference to work during their time off (78%); managers (84%), customers (76%) and employers (72%) expecting them to be available; and a personal preference for working at a time when potentially fewer distractions will get in the way of productivity (75%).
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We need to start normalising and promoting rest and recovery. We're not machines. We're not biologically designed to keep going and going. Rest is a responsibility and not a reward. If we want to achieve peak-performance in a digital world, we have to intentionally take time to rest and switch off. Your annual leave is an ideal time, especially if most of your colleagues and clients are likely to be taking leave at the same time.
We need both a physical and psychological break from our work. We cannot outperform our biology. We simply cannot. As humans, rest is vital for our wellbeing and performance.
Five practical tips to digitally-disconnect during your annual leave:
1. Plan your digital disconnection– Don’t succumb to ‘vacation email panic ’ whereby you wrestle with the digital dilemma of- Should I check emails during my holidays, or face a bulging inbox upon my return? Instead, have a clear plan of attack before you log off on your final day at work.
Communicate your plans to disconnect in advance to colleagues and/or clients. What strategies can you put in place in advance to support your time of digital disconnection? An out of office hopefully equals out of mind.? Turn on your out-of-office message (here are some humorous options if that’s your style). Here are a couple of mine I’ve used- you’re welcome to use them too.?
Another idea is to enable your OOO message to stay on a couple of days after your actual return to work. This affords you a day or so to triage your leave inbox, without the threat of an avalanche of more messages mounting in your inbox upon your return. You basically have some white space to clear the decks. At a company level, do you have digital guardrails or team agreements about communication during annual leave or during company shutdowns? Is it acceptable not to respond during your annual leave?? Is your organisation like the Mercedes-Benz Group that allows employees to auto-delete any incoming emails during vacation periods?
In my book Dear Digital, We need to talk, I share a case study from Nike about how to manage emails during leave periods. Is this an option for you and/or your team?
“Samantha Unrau, Global Director of Social Media Engagement Ops at Nike, explained on LinkedIn that she took a seven-week sabbatical from work and returned to an empty inbox. How did she achieve this digital utopia that many knowledge workers only dream about? She created an email rule to mark all emails as ‘read’ and route all emails received in her absence to a folder that she then deleted upon her return to work. She created an out-of-office reply that explained she would not be reading emails during her absence and that all emails would be deleted, and to use the ‘send later’ feature to re-send the email after the date of her return. More than 10,000 people responded to Samantha’s initial post declaring that she’d be deleting emails, and she happily reported that not one person used the ‘send later’ feature. “
2. Disable notifications & alerts– Pings and alerts have been intentionally designed to hijack our attention and trick us into thinking that every notification is urgent and important. The fact that the notification bubble is typically red is intentional as it’s a colour we psychologically associate with danger, urgency and importance. Use the ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature on your phone to send an auto-reply to people calling or texting during your annual leave. This is a pre-written message that will be automatically sent via SMS when ‘Do Not Disturb’ is activated to communicate that you’ll be digitally-disconnecting. Rest assured, this function can be overridden by replying with the word ‘urgent’, in case someone does need to contact you during this time.??
3. Establish a digital escalation plan- For urgent work issues that genuinely need your attention, clearly determine with your colleagues how they’ll contact you. Have one channel by which you’ll be directly contacted if a genuine emergency warrants your involvement. I strongly suggest a phone call. This way there’s no ambiguity as to whether you’ve received and read the message/email and people are more inclined to message or email you, as opposed to actually making a phone call (there’s much more friction and intent behind calling someone on their holiday).
4. Go greyscale– Switching your phone to greyscale makes it much less psychologically-appealing to use (trust me, Instagram is nowhere near as interesting in black and white). Technology has been designed to prey on our psychological weaknesses and the strategic use of colours and appealing icons make us want to reach for our screen. It’s reported that Steve Jobs said, “We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.”
5. Keep your tech-temptations off your home screen– Worried that you may urgently need to take a phone call or use your phone to check the weather, and then you’ll see you have 327 unread emails and before you know it you're down the digital rabbit hole?? You’re not alone. Remove your tech temptations off your home screen, or perhaps for your holiday period consider deleting work apps off your phone. This will prevent you from being lured into the digital rabbit hole when you simply unlock your phone.
Give it a go and see how rejuvenated, focused and rested you feel after being unplugged. Even if it’s just for a couple of days. I’m not suggesting you need to do anything drastic and unplug for your entire annual leave, nor am I suggesting you aspire for a #digitaldetox. Complete digital abstinence is near-impossible today. However, taking some time to reduce your digital load will have a profound impact on your wellbeing, relationships, focus and motivation.??
Book recommendations- Time Off by John Fitch and Max Frenzel??
References:
Executive Coach | Keynote Speaker | Leadership Facilitator | People Pleasing Expert | Management Consultant
11 个月Great tips, thanks for sharing!
Copywriter | Content Strategist | Sustainability Enthusiast. Copy Lead at Searcht + Better Copy Co ??
11 个月I loved this reminder Dr Kristy Goodwin. "Rest is a responsibility and not a reward" is my new mantra.