As many people plan winter getaways, they’re dreaming of leaving the hectic day-to-day existence behind and doing some serious chilling out. A break from their frenetic lives is just what the doctor ordered. And yet, the reality is that they’ll go away and will do very little relaxing, staying just connected enough to their life “back home” that the potential recuperative power of the vacation will be lost writes John Miller of the healthtravelblog.com

Has this ever happened to you? Of course it has. We all do it. Sometimes we just flat out fail to ramp down our desire to accomplish stuff.

As always, we’re here to help. Here are some ideas that you need to leave behind in order to replenish your mind, body and soul when you’re on vacation:

• (Do not) Maintain contact with the office. Staying up to speed with your entire workload is going to be very difficult; to do it well will require you to put in pretty much a full workday. So what’s the point of doing that? Either your colleagues will handle it, or it can wait. And don’t freak out about the email backlog that’s building. It’ll be fine. So leave the office behind.
• (Do not) Stay indoors. If you’re like most people, you spend a lot of time indoors – in the office, at home in front of the TV, etc., tethered to electronic devices. Vacation is a chance to break away and soak up some vitamin D from the sun.
• (Do not) Over-plan so that you squeeze in more must-see stuff. This is a big problem for a lot of folks – over-planning and cramming too much into each day. Obviously, if you’re headed to Rome for the first time there’s a lot to see, and you need to check off some of those boxes. But you’re not going to see it all, so don’t make yourself frantic. Don’t be afraid to spend the entire week without a schedule. Really. Just try it.
• (Do not) Go with family. A family vacation is nice; an extended family vacation can be even better. Or it can be psychological warfare. It depends on your family. But even the most united of families can get on each other’s nerves over the course of a week or two. If the goal is to truly relax, think about keeping your traveling party a little more intimate.
• (Do not) Stay home instead. Fewer vacations mean that the holidays you do take have a lot of pressure to be perfect, which in turn makes it far less likely that they’ll be perfect. Putting that kind of pressure on your vacation creates stress. So use those vacation days. It’ll make you perform better at work – happier and more productive.

Reproduced with kind permission of the healthytravelblog.com