In our busy lives, we tend to schedule everything from doctor appointments to haircuts, from meetings to parties. Our schedules are bulging with activities, so many in fact that we wonder how we can possibly expect to meet even a portion of the demands that we place on ourselves. Our schedules are color coded, prioritized, with very little white space available for life to occur, and we are stretched to the extremes and over extended in so many ways that breathing is a task that we seldom have time for.

Do you plan and schedule your rest time? If we are moving all of the time, juggling life’s demands and never making plans to take care of ourselves, how long can we expect to keep this pace up? If we were as diligent about scheduling rest as we are about scheduling demands, how much healthier would all of us be. Our stress levels would be greatly reduced, our mental and physical health would be greatly increased, and we would most likely find the joy of living again.

A study has been conducted that states that more and more of Americans, especially those employed in professional positions are turning back more and more vacation every year, taking less and less time for themselves and their families. Maybe things and times are a changing and the extended family vacations are not the priority that they once were. More and more Americans are taking what some refer to as micro vacations. Rest breaks during the day that happen in, and coffee shops, cafes, and parks. We feel less stressed about taking a short 15 to 30-minute microvacation and not having to deal with the work that is involved before and after a long extended two-week period where our work just piles up and makes it unbearable to think about trying to dig out when we never were ahead of schedule to start with.

Unplugging from the day to day commitments of the workplace are not just a benefit that our employers feel obligated to provide, but it should be thought of as a necessary part of being a productive and satisfied employee.

You can only work a horse so hard before he refuses to obey and eventually you need to rely on the whip to garner his attention. A horse that is allowed to have regular breaks and rest periods will be much more productive and easier to handle than one that is pushed to his limits regularly. Are we really that different? I don’t believe that we are.