Why putting your feet up this holiday is vital for good health

Summer holidays are a great time to catch up on reading. Photo / 123rf

It’s the holiday season, yet not many of us feel rested. We’re more go-go-go than ho-ho-ho. It’s hard to pause when there’s always something we could be doing. We feel guilty admitting we need a break. And even if we do grab a quiet moment, we rarely mentally relax — we’ll check our emails.

Trouble is, rest is not an indulgence. It’s a critical part of our functioning, with one recent survey by Sleep School — The State of UK Sleep in 2022 — finding that 46 per cent of us are unsatisfied with our sleep, and 58 per cent feel unrefreshed on waking. Anxiety, stress and difficulty switching off mentally were primary contributing factors.

Too often, people don’t understand that lack of downtime is detrimental to their mental and physical health, says Dr Sabine Donnai, founder of the Viavi Health Strategy clinic.

“When people burn the candle at both ends, they’re releasing an enormous amount of cortisol, the stress hormone.”

Yet they’re so used to those cortisol rushes, they don’t realise they’re on high alert.

“They misunderstand this — ‘Oh, I’ve got lots of energy, I can just carry on, do a million things, cope on six hours’ sleep every night’ — and maybe they’re an A-type personality that wants to do a million things.”

Ready, steady, reset: Reading a book or playing a game is the perfect way to relax. Photo / Oleshko Artem

In fact, this sense of energy is their cortisol being high. Which is where they run into problems. Our stress response is supposed to be short-lived.

“If I’m chased by a lion, I’m either going to outrun it, or kill it, or it’s going to kill me,” says Donnai.

“Either way it’s not going to take long.”

But if the stress response goes on and on and on, she says, “your adrenal glands become fatigued and that’s what we call burnout”.

The situation doesn’t have to be acute to have an adverse effect. Frequently, says Donnai, people aren’t overstressed, they’re “under-relaxed.”

She says, “People have forgotten how to switch off, how to remain in the moment.” Even walking along, they’re on their phone. “They need to be continuously stimulated.”

She adds, “People feel that if they stand still and do nothing, it’s a waste of time.”

Dr Mithu Storoni — neuroscience researcher and author of Stress Proof: The Scientific Solution to Protect Your Brain and Body and Be More Resilient Every Day — agrees.

When your schedule is non-stop, you never fully unwind, she says, “You might not actually be stressed but you’re always at the point of being stressed, you’re working at high- energy power, you’re pressing on the accelerator on a day-to-day basis.”

If this is your lifestyle, your ANS (your autonomic nervous system, which controls unconscious processes like your breathing and heartbeat) may have shifted to a “sympathetic-dominant state”, she says — meaning you’re almost always on the edge of fight or flight mode.

The other arm of your ANS, the parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest” mode), which is typically more active when you’re calm and relaxed, after a meal, after sex, or during sleep, isn’t balancing you out as it should be.

So what are the signs that your autonomic nervous system is overstimulated? Donnai says, “You get tired, your sleep gets disturbed, your eczema flares up, your gut starts being bloated, you have mood swings and you become more irritable with little things.”

Look out, too, for weight gain around the midriff — even if you’re furiously exercising and barely eating — because cortisol stores fat for energy. Another sign is waking at 3am (when cortisol is produced).

Donnai knows all our tricks. “People say ‘caffeine gives me energy!’ But there’s no energy in caffeine — you can only get your energy from fats, carbohydrate and protein. Of course you can have the sensation of energy. That is dangerous — you are then using more of your reserves, and eventually, there will be nothing left.”

Many of us struggle to feel rested in the holiday season. Photo / Supplied.

Plus, if you’re busy and buzzy all day it’s hard to switch off at bedtime. “You can’t enter into good sleep unless you return back to autonomic balance [of your nervous system] by the time your evening ends,” says Storoni.

“If you are in that ‘drive’ mode, then your brain stays alert, and you will have a problem falling asleep at night. This phenomenon is called hyper-arousal.”

It’s a vicious cycle, because if our sleep is too short or of poor quality, it can’t fulfil its essential functions.

“If your brain has not done a repair and checkup during the night — consolidating all the new memories, cleaning out all the waste products, processing all the information it’s learned,” says Storoni, “then the following day, the levels of mental fatigue remain. Cognitive performance sinks after a night of poor sleep, and your emotional regulation gets disturbed.”

What’s needed is equilibrium, says Storoni. A balance between fight and flight and rest and digest is the key to physiological recovery. Over the festive season, this can be a challenge.

“Emotional hassles, mental hassles — these can be draining,” she says.

Happily, scientists know what can help us truly rest and recover. “Psychological detachment and physiological relaxation — doing activities that give you a sense of mastery and control,” says Storoni.

“If you incorporate these things into your day, the data suggests that overall you are likely to feel more vigour, have more mental energy — and less mental fatigue the following day.”

Psychological detachment is when you reach the holy grail of a quiet mind because you’ve stopped thinking about work (or other stress sources). Conversely, when you don’t stop ruminating about it, “even if you’re not physically in your office, your brain is in that office chair”. Brooding on stressful topics is literally stressful.

“Your physiology will be tuned to being in that office chair. If you’re on holiday, lying on a beautiful beach thinking about work, your recovery is actually very limited.”

So if you’re tired but wired, says Storoni, find an activity that demands your full focus (be it ice-skating or a game of Uno).

“Something that grabs your attention and prevents you from ruminating is more conducive to recovery than flopping in front of the TV.”

Passively watching Frozen 3 again isn’t enough — “During the boring bits your mind will wander and go through all your tensions and anxieties — you can’t recover.” However, if your mind is clear, but you’re physically exhausted, “flopping in front of the TV is perfect”.

As for activities that give you a sense of mastery and control, Storoni says, “Some people find it very rejuvenating to do something creative. A sense of achievement can also help reset that mental state for the following day.” (Shame to waste those Christmas Lego, painting and craft sets on the children.)

And whatever the weather, get outside, preferably somewhere green.

“We know that if you walk from a concrete area into a nice big park, the sense of feeling wired immediately goes down,” Storoni says. The Attention Restoration Theory is that being in nature is restorative, and helps alleviate mental fatigue.

“When you’re somewhere green, nothing is forcing you to pay attention — there are no demands on your cognitive resources — the leaves aren’t saying ‘Count me’, the blades of grass aren’t selling you things, they’re not giving you bad news.”

Getting outside can work wonders. Being in nature is restorative and helps alleviate mental fatigue. Photo / Dean Purcell.

And how to physiologically relax? Donnai advises meditation, yoga, breathing exercises and mindfulness to counterbalance stress. If meditation or yoga isn’t for you, help your system reset by gifting yourself at least ten minutes twice daily.

“Say to yourself ‘I’m only in this moment now, I’m not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, or the shopping or social media’. You listen, you look, and you smell what’s around you, feeling the wind on your face. You bring yourself to now. The impact on your physiology is massive.”

And stop taking short, shallow breaths.

“People don’t get enough oxygen in. That gives a message to your sympathetic system that they’re in a stress reaction,” says Donnai. Make the most of your lung capacity with conscious breathing exercises.

“Breathe deeply, pulling your lungs out to the side, and your diaphragm down — it resets your system.”

The joy is, none of this is a chore.

“Reading a book or playing a game is relaxing, laughing is relaxing, because that brings you in the moment,” says Donnai — likewise, “art, doing a jigsaw puzzle, or playing table tennis is relaxing”.

All will lower your cortisol and switch you into rest mode. Here’s to a peaceful, restful new year.