When we think about vacation and rest we tend to think those two things go hand in hand. The assumption is that we are going on a holiday to take a break from our work, from school and from daily drudge that is our lives. So when we take a vacation we vacate our life for a little while and take a break. 

My experience of holidays has been rather stressful with little to no rest. The playbook is pretty simple: you arrive in the city in some cases a new city, you want to see everything. The immediate urge is to explore all the sights, the  museums, restaurants and art galleries. If you are like me you also want experiences such as hiking, bungee jumping  and whatever your mood demands. We want to do all these things because that for us is what a vacation is about –  a place to create experiences or change our surroundings. We come back from our vacations exhausted, in need of time to recover from the break that we took to recover from the burnout of work. 

For someone like me, who spends 24 to 48 hours in a city, (I always say 48hrs is all you need) rest is a myth. I move quickly through a city in quick succession of activities and I’m exhausted and I come home – this bothered me. For some people depending on where they live,  they spend close to 10 hours traveling to their vacation so all the precious minutes left are guarded for all important activities. 

I justified the way I travelled because I was having a lot of fun meeting new people, learning new things about new places  and seeing the beauty of this world. I was eating incredible food and just immersing myself in incredible culture, but I wasn’t getting any rest. 

A few years ago, I found myself in the amazing city Tallinn, Estonia. I had  booked to stay there for about four days. I spent the first day on a tour de force with a guide, who showed me everything you needed to see. I stumbled into an incredible restaurant where I met some pretty cool people, had a great dinner and was convinced to cross the Northern Baltic Sea to spend the day in Helsinki. Which I did the next day adding a new city with new experiences unplanned to my already packed trip.

After Helsinki I was exhausted, I passed out and I woke up at noon the next day the longest I had slept in months. I looked outside and went back to sleep and that is all I did for the next two days in Estonia. I felt incredible when I got on the plane the next day to go to my next location, I felt rested, refreshed, energised and I was smiling at people at the airport. We never give sleep enough credit for the wonders it does for our bodies, it is truly magic. 

This newly rested me had an idea: what if, once a year I booked a few days, it doesn’t have to be a whole week, and I go somewhere just to sleep. What if my vacation really was a break? I could still be in a new location, could still be somewhere beautiful but I just go there to sleep and if I feel I have the energy I can maybe do one thing during that vacation. So the next year,I did it. 

I booked a place and I went on a sleep vacation, a sleepcation, for three days just me and I slept and it was glorious. 

Last year, I invited my younger sister to come with me to Mauritius where we went on a sleeping vacation. We had maybe one minimal activity but we slept. We ate, slept and swam and every morning when I woke up It was so clear that my body just needed to shut down. It was so important for my body to not worry about what activities were coming up or have to think about what is happening at work. My body needed real rest and it was my job to give it some. 

During that trip I had some of the most incredible sleep of my life. Sleep that gave me a kind of freeing of my soul. Freedom to be able to separate myself from the preconceived ideas of what a vacation should look like. Freedom that allowed me to truly detach and take a break,  an opportunity to truly do nothing. 

We talk about spending time doing nothing, but we never really spend time doing nothing. We spend time finding many little things and exhausting thoughts to occupy ourselves with. 

This year with the way COVID-19 has disrupted the travel industry, it’s been very difficult to find moments for real sleep vacation. I have one coming up in December where I want to spend time sleeping in a nice cozy location. I want to allow the burden of this year to fall off me by sleeping.. This year has taken a heavy toll from many of us, but it has also given back so much. If I cannot be still and rest from its heaviness I can’t truly appreciate its gifts either. 

So my one thing that I will definitely be taking into the new year is making sure that I keep my sleep vacations sacred. I need to do more active work to build it into how  I take care of myself and put myself and my rest at the forefront of my health.

Happy sleeping.