Summer is here and vacation time is approaching. While it is obvious that going away is very important for physical and mental health, it is not so obvious that everyone can leave and some of us will have to spend their vacation at home.  But a rest period is also useful without being able to travel.

When we work, we wait for the weekend impatiently, but it is not long enough to let us fully recharge the batteries. To be able to disconnect from work, we need more time.

Vacation is what we need, we need it as much as we need sleeping, eating, and drinking. If we want to stay healthy we must take leave days, because they allow us to recover energy and when we come back we often feel better, sometimes even more creative.

It doesn’t matter if you leave to go on vacation or stay at home. The main thing is that you can rest and put aside daily worries. Choose what to do, with whom and when to do it. You can spend more time reading, doing more physical activity, and spending time outdoors.  You can go on short hikes, even without wandering off too far from home.

However, it is also true that staying at home is not quite like going on vacation. You may not know what to do, or you get bored, you do not want to tidy up the house, your children (if you have any) make confusion, in short, you have to think about many things, as if you were working.

If you can’t leave for vacation, try these tips:

1. Do not read professional emails and stop compulsively looking at your mobile phone to see if a new message has arrived, or how many likes the photo you put on Instagram received. Try cutting these activities off for a weekend. See how it goes, and try to go beyond the two days, accept it as a challenge.

2. Set rules and times to be at the computer or television (both for you and your children).

3. Minimize homework, do not get stressed by an unmade bed.

4. Discover a city or village close to home that you’ve never visited. Sometimes we don’t think about the treasures that are hidden near us. Take a day to go and explore the area near you, eat in a typical restaurant, visit the places of cultural and tourist interest, if it is worth it, take a room in a hotel to continue the visit even the next day.

5. Create a time capsule.  What is a time capsule? My idea of a time capsule is nothing more than a box (shoe boxes are fine) that you can customize by putting in photos, newspaper clippings, drawings, and the letters you may have written and received. Use your imagination to create a box that contains everything that represents your current self. Keep it and in a few years go and see how you have changed. You may be surprised by the progress you’ve made.

6. Do physical activity in the middle  of nature  because nature is a source of energy.  Choose a route or destination then go. The only race worth doing is against yourself. Every time you go for a run, a walk or go out on a bike you can decide to challenge yourself and go further or take a more difficult route. Keep track of your achievements with an app or simply write them down in a notebook. Then, every now and then, look at them and see the improvements.

7. Organize a movie night. Choose a movie you’d like to share with your friends, prepare some popcorn, get something to drink, and start watching the movie. At the end, you can discuss it together.

8. Why not sign up for a course to learn something new? There are also many free possibilities! If your old hobbies bore you or you don’t have any real hobbies, why not start one? How about learning a new language, a sport that has always attracted you, or a musical instrument? Rediscover your passions and develop your talents. Make a list of things you’d like to do, then choose the one you like best.

9. Rediscover a childhood activity. You have many good memories related to your childhood. Some are linked to places, others to people, others to activities. Why don’t you try to rediscover what you liked to do when you were a child? Did you like playing with Lego? Now you could try to build something with Lego. Or did you like to draw and then stopped because life led you to do something else? Did you climb trees? Why not try again now (be careful not to hurt yourself). Let yourself be carried away by memories and choose one that is realistically possible to put into practice.

10. Offer yourself a moment of relaxation.  An essential oil body massage made by expert hands is a panacea for your well-being.

To recharge your batteries, you don’t need to go to an exotic place, take a daring trek, or organize a party with a thousand guests.

Free time, it goes without saying, is the time during which you do not do the usual things and you can plan your day without too many constraints or obligations. It is a unique opportunity to listen to your needs, without an agenda to follow, to enjoy and savor your moments of freedom that can allow you to take better care of yourself.

Vacation is certainly a panacea to empower you to do something that you have not had the time or energy to do before.

Loosening the rhythm of your life, taking moments to listen to yourself, living the present moment, relearning to follow the needs of your body, listening to your heart, carrying out relaxing, creative or spiritual activities are things you can do even if you do not leave for vacation but you stay at home.

To conclude, remember that the mentality with which you approach your resting time is also important. Sometimes it would be more useful to go on vacation from yourself because it is not always easy to make the void within oneself, to free oneself from everyday thoughts, indeed sometimes you would like to leave to escape. And escaping from everyday life doesn’t mean your worries go away too!

So, to paraphrase what they say on planes, even if you stay at home, sit back, relax, and enjoy your free time.

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