On this week’s Creator Stories, Interact Digital Marketing Manager Jessmyn Solana shares her insights on the importance of taking meaningful breaks and disconnecting. Although it can seem counterintuitive, taking the time to unplug and reset can have extraordinary effects on our well-being and even improve our productivity in the long run.
Jessmyn:
Hi everyone, and welcome back to Interact’s Creator Stories podcast. My name is Jessmyn Solana. I’m excited to be back here with you all. I was out of office last week, so we did have to skip a week, but here I am now. For this week’s episode, I decided to do something a bit different and do a mini-sode so to speak. And I did this for two reasons. One being that I was on vacation last week, and because this week was mostly me catching up, I didn’t get a chance to interview my next guest. And two, because I took a whole week off and actually disconnected from all things work, I had a lot of time to reflect and I realized how important taking this break was for me. So this is more of a personal account of my own reflection and experiences that I wanted to share with you all, and will hopefully be helpful for someone else to hear.
Jessmyn:
So here’s my account for why it is so, so, so important to fully disconnect and take a full break from work. So I took a week off for my brother’s small wedding, and it was one of the events that was unfortunately heavily affected by the pandemic. I had always anticipated taking a week off for his wedding because I was a part of the bridal party, but had I not been, or had this not been scheduled around this time, I would have never taken the time off and would not feel as recovered as I do now.
Jessmyn:
So prior to the wedding, I was starting to feel heavy work fatigue, along with two COVID deaths on different sides of my family. And I was also taking on new responsibilities at work. It was a really rough time, and it was really hard to process all of this happening around the same time. And I really found myself going through these really exciting highs and really low lows. So I was more than ready for an actual break. And usually I wouldn’t have taken time off the way that I did, or even unplugged from work the way that I did, but I knew that I needed to.
Jessmyn:
So here’s why fully disconnecting and taking a full break from work is important. One, it prevents you from experiencing burnout. It also helps you recover from burnout. Two, it allows you to become present in the space that you’re in, whether that be physically or mentally. And three, it’s just a reminder that work will still be there when you get back. It’s not going anywhere. It will be there and you can just pick up where you left off.
Jessmyn:
So even though I had eventually realized this, I still had huge anxiety for coming back to a hundred plus emails that would take hours to sift through. So while I was setting up my work to make sure everything was set for my week off, I had actually politely asked people not to email me or message me until I was back. And I did give them a date of when I was going to return. I had also included this in my auto response email. So if anyone did end up emailing me, they would have that message that said, “Hey, you might need to send me another email on the date that I return or after I return, in case I don’t respond.” Luckily, everyone I had spoken to respected my wishes, but of course I still received some messages. But it wasn’t nearly as much as I probably would have had if I didn’t ask.
Jessmyn:
So I was able to come back to work, feeling relieved and ready to keep going. This was honestly super awesome, because I was very nervous to ask people to do that, but you know, they did it and it happened. And I feel like I was able to come back to work better for it. So while I was out of office, I did not check my email once. And I gave myself full permission to do absolutely nothing while I was out, and not think about anything that had to do with work. So this was also the first time that my family had seen each other in months and I really wanted to take it all in and just enjoy being with each other. I’m not going to lie. It was hard. I had so many urges to just log in and check my email, but then I reminded myself why I was fully disconnecting.
Jessmyn:
So by taking this time for myself and for my own mental space, I was able to actually rest and reflect and process my different emotions without the fear of prioritizing my work responsibilities. And in turn, I was able to come back more refreshed. I was less stressed out, and I was in a more positive mental space than when I left. So this is helping keep me more productive than I was before taking a break. I feel happier. And now I’m able to give a hundred percent back to my work responsibilities.
Jessmyn:
This reflection I had also speaks true for knowing when to turn off your work brain each day, or even on weekends. Especially with the pandemic, forcing most people to work at home there becomes a blur, right, between work and home life, when you’re doing it all in the same place. I know it took me a long time to really work through that myself, even though we were remote before the pandemic even began. But it was just a reminder to me that it’s okay to listen to your body and it’s okay to take breaks and completely disconnect at the end of the day. It’s okay to still hustle and grind, but then turn it off to enjoy your evenings and weekends. And it’s okay to give yourself permission to actually rest your mind and your body.
Jessmyn:
Well, that’s it for me. Thank you all to the creators who are listening. It’s always scary to try something new. So let me know what you guys thought of this little mini-sode, and me rambling on about my thoughts. You can reach us on our Instagram and let us know, and I will see you next week. Bye.