When you go on holidays with your family, sometimes it’s not much of a holiday. There can be so much organising and tasks to do in the lead up to the holiday, caregiving and responsibilities whilst you’re on holiday, and then working through the aftermath of the holiday (e.g., all the unpacking and washing), that it might not feel like much of a break. Sometimes mums come back feeling like they need a ‘holiday from the holiday’.

If you’ve ever felt like you need a holiday from your holiday, then you might want to try a ‘Brief Holiday’. This distress tolerance skill from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy involves giving yourself a brief holiday from your life; the aim is to slow down, retreat, take care of yourself, do something different, and act as if you are on holiday. A Brief Holiday might go for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 2 hours, or up to a day, and involves doing the sorts of things you would do if you were on holiday and not in your everyday life. Brief holidays can involve: 

• • Getting into bed and pulling the covers up over your head
  • Turning your phone off for a day
  • Going to the beach, park, bush or other natural spots for an afternoon
  • Take a brief vacation from responsibility- do something alone that you wouldn’t ordinarily do in daily life. 
  • Bingeing a show
  • Lounging by a pool with a good book; reading in a hammock; or simply taking a book outside to read.
  • Or anything else that you might not do in your ordinary life but would do if you were on holiday (there are so many possibilities). 

Sometimes brief holidays of even a few minutes can help you feel like you’ve had a break from normal life and help you recharge; you may need more than one to achieve this. This is taking a mental health day (or minute) at its finest!