People often underestimate the vacation and thinking that this is just a time to work on other projects. However, this is still a job, so people do not rest properly. This article gives you some useful tips on planning a perfect vacation together with an explanation of how they work.

Change The Context

One of the reasons why people are tired of work is routine. They have to do similar activities all the time, and this is a tiresome thing. So, to start a proper vacation, you should get rid of that routine and completely switch the context.

There are many ways to do such a switch. You may visit relatives you haven't seen in a while, travel to far and unusual places, start a new hobby or do something you haven't done before.

One more example of such a context switch is a change of the activity type. People who have hard physical work usually prefer to have a relaxed vacation — e.g., spend several days with the family at the seashore with minimum physical activities. On the contrary, people who are doing intellectual labor often have a very active vacation — these can be mountain trips, long journeys through multiple countries, etc.

The main reason why this context switch work is because you are changing the type of brain load by temporarily changing your lifestyle. Such a change decreases the load on brain areas you are using all the time and enables other brain areas to maintain balance. So, you are putting less pressure on the brain in general and consequently feeling relaxed.

Enhance Communication

You may and should contact the people you do not talk to often. You may also visit them intentionally or combine the visit with the travel. These can be family members, good friends, co-workers prem previous jobs, people with similar interests, and so on.

This kind of activity helps to relax because you have unusual (or at least not typical) conversations. These conversations allow your brain to switch to different topics and work on them. This way, you avoid a tiresome routine and sometimes can even do more than during the work time.

Do Whatever You Want

Finally, this is a vacation, so you can do whatever you want! The critical part here is to do what you want to do, not what you need to do. There is a big difference — the duties you need to do are usually considered a routine, while the desires are something unusual and pleasurable.

Buying something unusual or related to some emotions sometimes may help too. Again, this is how to switch the context, avoid boring activities, and do something brand new.

There is a similar recommendation for hobbies and new contacts — just do it! Try something you have never tried before, meet people you have never met, find new friends — in other words, do whatever you always wanted to do, but never had time to do that.

You may want to create or store reminders about the time well spent. These can be photos, videos, souvenirs, new day-to-day activities, etc. One way or another, they have to remind you about the vacation, keep you relaxed, and bring a warm feeling to the everyday routine!