November 2, 2026 | Posted in: Living Hartfully
I was recently reminded of how critical it is to match your type of leisure, recreation, and vacation choices to your needs for doing them and how a mis-matched fit can cause frustration, fatigue, and sickness rather than renewing, refreshing, and re-creating your psyche anew. Afterall, the word recreation means to re-create and restore your mind and body. It can be as nuanced as to how you’re doing what you’re doing rather than changing the entire what you’re doing. Or you may need to just change up the entire thing.
When we seek our leisure, recreation and vacations, it is to get away from what our normal work day or normal routine is generally like. It’s a break from the same old, same old thing to change things up and hit reset. That’s what sabbaticals were originally used for – to give professionals time off to recharge and reflect, and renew themselves and come back refreshed with more energy and focus to do whatever they were doing. Just yesterday I came across this blot post I did nearly exactly 18 years ago on Self-batticals and it still rings true today. Funny how that works with manifesting. To take a look at the throwback post – here it is: Self-Batticals and The Art of Self-Care – 3 November 2008: https://gaiahart.com/2008/11/ .
What reminded me of this topic were a few instances. A friend had just come back from a grand adventure in Peru to see and do all the things that one does when exploring the mountains and jungles and sacred sites. She came home sick – same as I did when I experienced all of the things on my Peruvian odyssey. How I described it to my friends was that it was a grueling adventure. Up by 5am nearly every day to hike, climb, canoe and be on the road to get to the next destination for more hiking, climbing at altitude etc. Both of us took those trips amid extremely busy work/business schedules and our vacations were pure exploration and not a drop of restoration. No wonder we both got sick.
Being a high-sensation-seeker, I got sick on nearly every trek and trip I took for decades because I was working hard and playing harder. No time to rest and restore – it was go, go, go, places to see, things to do, people to meet. Until my body forced me to slow down by getting sick, even though my brain didn’t want to miss out on anything. Especially if you are under stress, pressure, and working hard, your leisure, recreation and vacation time needs to be a break from all of that and be restorative. Build in restoration time in your vacation schedule. Or plan an entire vacation around relaxation and restoration and not necessarily exploration so you slow down your pace. Stay away from any group tours that force your pace and place and choose private guides or just stay in one place and wander at your own leisure, nap, lounge, stay put and pay attention to new surroundings, food, sounds, and sights.
The same goes for your recreation choices at home. If it starts feeling like a part-time job to get up early, drive to the courts, the course, or trails during rush hour traffic, set an alarm to be at the computer to pounce on a slot open for the fitness class that fills in one minute past 7am or you feel the pressure to perform in a tournament or find a sub if you can’t make your league play that day, then there may be an issue. I found this to be true in my 55 and fun community. I’ve chosen not to set alarms to rush to the computer to sign up for the next week’s fitness classes – if there is an opening when I get to that day, fine and if not, I awake when my body is ready. I play sports in drop-in when you can and leave when you have to format instead of tournaments and leagues. I don’t need any more pressure put on me and my schedule. Instead, I go with the flow and how I feel that day and at that time and it works out so much better than adhering to a strict schedule after I ditched the strict schedules when I retired.
This philosophy also works for activities you may have thought you’d like to try or may have enjoyed at one time in your life, but now it doesn’t serve the same purpose. This happened to me with gluten-free sourdough bread baking, gardening and yard work. The term work is in the name and I don’t want my yard to become a part -time job. I spent one summer raising a vegetable garden and another two seasons with a flower garden before I called it quits. I’ll buy my vegs at a farmer’s market and leave the growing to the experts. I replaced flowers with evergreen shrubs after a couple seasons of frost and planting/digging up/replanting over 450 plants. I now buy fresh flowers for my home. I thought sourdough bread baking would be fun…..it was another part-time job and like having a pet you had to feed and nurture. I will leave that to the expert bakers so I can regain many hours of my time and not have to wait several days for a slice of bread.
So pay attention to how you feel leading up to an activity, while you’re participating and afterwards. Are you renewed or run ragged? Do you anticipate with delight or dread? Listen to your body and anticipate what you need – more exploration to get you out of boredom or more restoration to renew you from overwork and stress, then plan something that will serve you in the best way possible.
On a similar note – I’ll be reviewing the latest book from Annet Van Duinan and Randy Grasser on the topic of Reclusive Self Improvement – also having to do with exploration, restoration and reflection as phases/seasons in life.
