Sometimes you just need to get away. Whether you’ve been working long hours and you’re tired of staring at the same wall in your cubicle for eight hours a day, or you’ve been mentally planning an oceanside getaway for the past years, you owe it to yourself.
A vacation is the perfect chance to get away, relax and come back refreshed and ready to conquer the world.
We know you work really hard kicking those career goals, studying hard or doing what you do best. Surely this means you deserve a vacation sooner rather than later.
Act now, think later is the rule of the vacation game, because the only vacation you’ll ever regret is the one you didn’t book.
Below are 8 signs you really need a vacation:
1. You’re feeling negative
You are feeling bored and are having difficulty mustering up motivation to get your work done. Everyone and everything about your job annoys you, and you are feeling neither satisfied nor fulfilled when it comes to the daily grind and your overall career path. If these negative thoughts seep into your personal life, it’s time for a break.
2. You’re in physical pain
When you feel anxious or overwhelmed at work, your brain releases stress hormones as a “fight-or-flight” response to whatever is causing the stress. Over time, the less benign physiological consequences of this chemical reaction – increased pulse rate, blood pressure, sweating – can lend themselves to more severe symptoms like chest pain, back aches, eye strain, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, dizziness, and fainting. The exhaustion that comes with a heavy workload can also weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to cold viruses, the flu, and infections.
3. You’re struggling to sleep
Those same stress hormones may also make it difficult to unwind before bedtime, fall asleep, and even stay asleep. A study reported that a third of millenials do not get the recommended eight hours of sleep each night because they do not have time, while another third cannot fall asleep because they have too much on their minds.
4. You’re making mistakes at work
The “fight or flight” response does more than harm your health and ruin your ability to sleep, it also gives you tunnel vision. When stress becomes chronic, this narrow focus continues for a long time and we have difficulty paying attention to other things. Your performance at work may start to slip as this narrowed focus impairs your memory as well as your problem solving and decision making skills.
5. You’re using unhealthy coping mechanisms
If you find yourself regularly reaching for a glass of wine to relax, or looking for comfort in junk foods and sugary snacks, you may be suffering from burnout. At the end of a long day, you might also be too tired to exercise, and end up just watching TV.
6. You’re engaging in counterproductive work behaviors
You may not actively try to undermine your company’s best interests, but if you are feeling stressed, you might subconsciously engage in behaviors that can negatively affect your productivity or job performance. Whether you are having difficulty pulling yourself out of bed in the morning and getting to the office on time, or you are feeling so irritable you find yourself getting into tiffs and arguments with co-workers, it might be time to take some time off to recharge.
7. Even the smallest problem seems hard to overcome
Projects that used to be easy to tackle may not seem so easy anymore, and your co-workers’ little quirks might morph into major annoyances. A lack of healthy perspective on issues can definitely be a sign you need to recalibrate your mental settings.
8. Work has become your life
You work all day and then you go home and think about work some more. You have given up your favorite hobbies and activities because you have allotted all your time to work and you’re too exhausted to do anything else. Because of this, conversations with your friends and family tend to revolve around work.
