Disconnect electronically to benefit from time off
Stress for Success
8/14/07

When your kids were babies wasn’t part of your brain awake all night focusing on sounds coming from their bedrooms? After a few years of this did you feel drained, exhausted and mentally fuzzy?

The impact of the developed world’s obsession with being electronically connected almost all waking hours is similar; after a few years you start feeling less rested, more fuzzy-headed and stressed out.

If you’re always plugged in and available for business communication during your off-work hours, not to mention your vacations, you’re never “off”, you’re never fully relaxed. How could you be if there’s the possibility that work may interrupt you at any moment?

Since the advent of fax machines, cell phones, instant messaging, etc., the boundary between work and personal time has been blurred for most people and virtually disappeared for some. On vacation you can physically be 3,000 miles away from work but as long as you remain “on call” you may as well be down the hallway from your office. Staying forever electronically connected to your job means you choose to participate in the instant expectations and response game you play every day at work.

There are definitely some people who handle this constant communication potential with little apparent stress. They focus like a laser beam on a work issue and when finished drop it like a hot potato and refocus on their off-work activity. Others are dogged by professional responsibilities carrying them as a backdrop in all they do.

Regardless of where you fall on this stress continuum, why waste your money on a perfectly good vacation risking the stress consequences of not fully relaxing? If you’ve always remained connected you can’t know if you’d be more relaxed disengaged until you try it.

Request honest feedback from your family regarding how it affects their vacations when you remain available to your professional responsibilities. Ask if it interferes with the family’s ability to have fun and to focus on each other.

If they ask you to detach from work during vacations:
· Communicate to those most affected, those who contact you the most often when you’re on vacation that you’ll be incommunicado during your upcoming break. Or, that you’ll only handle work communications at one specific time daily.
· Program your voice-mail and email’s out-of-office reply to inform others of when you’ll return.
· While on vacation breathe deeply each time you’re tempted to “check in” to help break your habit (addiction?)

Mounting research finds that regularly turning off completely is imperative in combating the physical consequences of stress. Your mind and body regularly need to recharge. A real vacation allows you to do this by letting go of work and settling into a different pace.

Do yourself a favor. Disconnect during your next vacation; even if only for part of it as an experiment. For some it may be painful. Others may be frightened of the consequences. Ultimately the health consequences of not reducing your stress are far greater than the consequences of disconnecting from work during a vacation.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.