Take Care of Yourself for the Good of Your Business

The massage therapy profession requires you to be on your feet and active for a large part of your day. When your business is thriving and your clients are booking your time as quickly as it becomes available, it is easy to forget to take a break and enjoy your success. Your business depends on you; you can’t afford to over-stress your mind or body. That’s why it is important for you to take time to take care of yourself.

Taking a Vacation is Good for You and Your Business

One way you can take care of yourself is to take a vacation. While you might not be able to get away often, when you get a chance you should leave your work behind for at least a few days. Why? Because your brain periodically needs a change of pace.

Sure, there are things that you can do throughout your week to temporarily escape from the daily grind. Activities such as walking outdoors, reading a good book, or doing a little shopping can all provide a little stress relief. But these types of short respites offer limited benefits when compared to the refreshment that a longer holiday delivers.

In studying the benefits of various types of breaks, researchers have found that the best thing you can do for your health and wellbeing is to completely step away or disengage from your daily routines from time to time.

If you want to feel rejuvenated when you return home, then while on vacation give your mind some new challenge to enjoy and embrace and give yourself permission to have fun.

How to Take a Vacation that Works

Are you ready for a vacation? Once you’ve found the time to get away, you’ll want to make sure you actually benefit from the break. Use these tips to help you make the most of your time off.

Completely disengage
When you take time off you need to give your mind time off too. Otherwise, you’ll return from vacation just as stressed as when you left. This means that you can’t spend your time after dinner jotting down plans for your next marketing campaign. You also shouldn’t be looking over last month’s billings when you’re supposed to be relaxing by the pool. Maybe you can flip through a massage industry magazine while you’re poolside--but no taking notes!

Entertain your brain
To truly benefit from a vacation, you have to actually engage in activities that at least resemble a holiday. In an interview with Scientific American, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, explains that taking a vacation doesn’t mean putting your brain on stand-by.

Soojung-Kim Pang says that the best holidays are spent engaging in “restorative” activities. The rests he references in his book involved mountain climbing and long walks. The key to a rejuvenating vacation is choosing activities that you find engaging, yet totally different from your usual routine.

Plan your escape
Of course, not all vacations are equal. Some people find it difficult to pull themselves away from work. Other individuals may feel like they can’t completely drop off the grid. This is especially true if you operate your own business. Your staff will expect to be able to reach you in case of an emergency.

So how can you approach disengagement when you can’t leave your work completely behind? The article by Accountemps, How to Take a Vacation That’s a True Escape from Work, offers some advice. The Accountemps authors recommend enlisting help from staff and co-workers, establishing a contingency plan, and setting a few ground rules for work-related communications.

These steps may seem like a lot of work just to take a break from work--but you’ll appreciate the peace of mind once you’re out the door and on your holiday.

Stay at Your Best by Remembering to Rest

Taking care of others is what you do. But it is okay to take care of yourself too. As life coach Randi Levin tells Massage Magazine in its article “A Massage Therapist’s Guide to Purposeful Time Management,” “Creating personal time prioritizes us, which in turn allows us to be at our best in all other aspects of our lives.”

So go ahead, find some time to get away and do something just for you. Besides, you can always check in with your practice. Remember, the ClinicSense massage therapy booking and management system is as close as the nearest internet connection.