219. What is holiday anxiety - and why can’t we switch off? With clinical psychologist, Dr Elaine Smith

0:00I recently was told about an employee who was asked by their boss to check emails every single day whilst they were on annual leave. And the justification, apparently, it wasn't fair to expect their colleague to decide what was urgent. So they did every day of their two week holiday. They checked their inbox and here's where it gets even worse. One day they didn't check for 24 hours, only 24 hours. and a colleague sent multiple angry emails about not getting a reply even though they acknowledged that that person was on holiday. So if you're listening to this and thinking that sounds familiar or at least it's not as bad as my workplace then trust me this episode is very much for you.

0:45Dr. Elaine Smith:I am a clinical psychologist so that is my training and now I specialise in mental health at work. I came to that work really because of a lot of experiences in my own clinic. People coming to me with stories about work, work is a huge anchor in our life and it can really support us or it can really drain us. That was Dr Elaine Smith. Dr Elaine has worked with hundreds of people trapped in exactly these toxic work cultures but she's also discovered something very powerful. The problem isn't just bad bosses or unrealistic expectations, it's that we've accidentally trained our own brains to be addicted to checking.

1:24And she knows exactly how to break that addiction. Dr. Elaine has cracked the code on how to actually disconnect properly, not just the surface level, leave your laptop at home advice, but the deep psychological shifts that let you genuinely rest and come back stronger. And with your summer holidays just around the corner, her timing could not be more perfect because the science is really clear. Proper rest doesn't just make you feel better. It makes you dramatically more productive when you do return to work. Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture.

2:00We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a charter occupational psychologist. My name is Al. I'm a business owner. Today we're going to discover why your brain is literally wide to check emails on holiday. I know how annoying. We're also going to look at the exact words to use in your out of office message, the ones that actually work, and Dr. Elaine's strategy for dealing with colleagues who expect you to be available 24-7. Oh, and we're also going to hear from a listener whose workplace culture was so toxic around holidays, it's going to make you question everything about modern work expectations.

2:37So we're going to join Dr. Elaine after this very short break. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across three teams and four systems. And in our case, it's about 216 ,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it. What you should be doing is using HubSpot because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from. So when When sales talks to a customer, marketing already narrows the full story.

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3:22Dr. Elaine Smith:I am a clinical psychologist, so that is my training. And now I specialise in mental health at work. And I'm particularly interested in leadership and the impact that leaders can have on mental health, both their own but also of their team and the little changes they can make to make a massive impact. I think work is a huge anchor in our life and it can really support us or it can really drain us. It's such a big aspect of our lives isn't it? I mean it's I mean I guess now is the time of year where we don't want it to be as big an aspect of our lives. We're looking to take those holidays looking to that resting and recovery time but with that does come a bit of anxiety from people around that how to that effectively or how to manage their expectations of their workplace and their family and what that looks like if we just start at the beginning because even as a self-employed person I'm my own boss I can take time off when I want to but I still find it really hard to switch off why is that well I think because we're always on You know, I think obviously technology now, as well as I'm an advocate for it.

4:31Dr. Elaine Smith:I think there's lots of great things about it. It definitely helps me to do my job, for sure. I'm definitely not anti-technology, but at the same time, it means, I mean, we can book a holiday. We can order a shopping. We can do our work all from this machine in our hands. So no wonder it's hard to switch off, not only for work, but also just in life. Switch off from friends, to switch off from media. and so yeah we're always on and it's you know there's some statistics I don't know exactly but how many notifications for example we get in a day how that's training us really so I think it's no wonder we find it really hard to switch off I often say to people it's not like the olden days where you got in from work and you didn't hear anything about work until the next day and I must say when I was thinking about doing this today thinking I do appreciate growing up in that age where I can remember that even though I was quite young at the time and I have that as a as a sort of baseline whereas people growing up the younger generation today don't have that they've not lived through a time where you actually you could properly switch off and so yeah I think that's really important.

5:41I guess my question is we want to be engaged in our work if we find meaningful fulfilling work that's really good for us psychology really good for our well-being our mental health but where does that engagement in work tip into unhealthy as a boundary between being attached to work in a healthy way and in an unhealthy way I like this question I think it's about obviously we want to fulfill a role and that if we even think about more black and

6:09Dr. Elaine Smith:white way like what's in your contract what do you have to do for your work and I guess a lot of people will always do a little bit more than that some people might do a little bit less than that but I guess it becomes so you've got your responsibility you're meeting all your goals you're doing what you're meant to do to get paid for but it becomes unhealthy when it becomes more like a compulsion to to keep working or that need to keep doing more and more and more and the guilt that comes with not working you know so I think it's really about balance and it becomes unhealthy when it leaks over into other parts of our life like say family time for example or not doing hobbies as much or whatever so there's less balance we know there's something wrong what's driving that what why am i failing actually detaching from work we know that obviously we're primed for it right so we have the phone everywhere so it's not like you have to charge like open up the laptop and wait for the emails to come in you just have your phone it's about anxiety obviously it's driven by anxiety but also if we think about what happens when you do check okay so every behavior there's a reason behind it as we know how are you rewarded by checking right so what happens is you feel the anxiety you check and then we experience short-term relief because often we're thinking what if what if what if you know is that you know has somebody replied to that or it's a worry because it's usually driven by catastrophizing if something bad happened or often it is maybe not always um so when we check we get short-term relief and obviously that's a reward for us it doesn't last very long hence it's short term wait some time and the anxiety builds again um and then we check so i think it's partly habit um but definitely that reward we get because we want to feel relief we want to get rid of that feeling.

8:08Dr. Elaine Smith:But by checking all the time, we're actually just feeding the anxiety. What's a better habit to form and to deal with that anxiety than the checking behaviours? Well, say we're talking about if you're on holiday, I do recommend for some people just getting rid of the apps or the notifications for that time or disable them or whatever, right? Because temptation is difficult. So I think that's part of it. The other part of it is, so that's a practical way. In terms of our psychology and our mental health, it's about noticing. Here we go. Here we go anxiety. I feel you again. I feel this again. But what we know about anxiety is that if we look at it on a curve, it has to peak somewhere.

8:55Dr. Elaine Smith:And once it peaks, of course, then it will reduce. But we have to stay with it. So in a way, we have to ride the urge and find something else to do. while that anxiety is going it might be going to walk it might be listening to music just talking to somebody just connecting with somebody probably doing something off the phone ideally um in that time while that anxiety is peaking and then it will reduce it can't keep going up and up and up it will reduce so i think it's about doing that um you could say it's a distraction technique but that's okay short term to let us because we're trying to retrain ourselves and form a new habit I like that so if if somebody's got a holiday coming up in a couple of weeks time would you recommend start setting those boundaries now so as you say maybe remove those apps from your home you can only check on your laptop not doing it in non-working hours will that help them when we are on on holiday to detach absolutely because it's about practice it's a bit about confidence as well you know building that confidence that you don't need to check all the time and it's trying something new and ideally it's good to try that something new before.

10:08Dr. Elaine Smith:There's enough to think about going on holiday which is part of this as well. There's enough physical, practical preparation without sort of adding in so you need to do a little bit of work before the holiday just to prepare, give yourself the best chance there's so much time, effort and money spent on a holiday yet a lot of people say I don't even know if it's worth it, which I think is a real shame. It's a dreadful shame we've come to that. So I really want to help people to try and really embrace the holiday. We mentioned that we can practice the not checking after work hours before we go on holidays.

10:50You said there deciding what emails you would look for and potentially open. Is there anything else that we can do to prepare for a holiday? So we are setting ourselves up for success.

11:04Dr. Elaine Smith:Yeah, definitely. So there's a couple of things. There's doing a handover. Like if there's somebody else that's going to be taking care of your work, or I mean, it's sort of rarer that there's somebody actually doing your job, perhaps when you're away, but somebody who's taking care of any emergencies or something, like having a chat with them, you know, it's a bit of passing the baton, isn't it? Because when you're away, you'll pass the baton to them and vice versa. so when they're away you'll do the same okay so it's it should be shared in that way but definitely about having a chat with them and just making it clear if there's anything a b or c you want them to look out for um to be very clear and this is all about clarity as well setting that boundary and then um i also talk about setting a really good out of office email um because that is your own personal boundary plan if you like and it also really helps to set expectations so it's being really clear and you're seeing some good out of office emails but you know some people say they're on the beach or you can inject personality it's very personal choice but one that really works for you saying I'm away from this date until this date for example and making it clear that on your return I think this is the really important part on your return buying yourself a little bit of time um you could even say i'm likely to have lots of emails on my return but i do um hope to get back to you within two business days three businesses whatever it is you know and being really realistic about that because that really helps us to be like okay i've told people exactly what they can expect from me and i need to stick to that it's actually well in my view it's quite unprofessional to say I won't be I won't be looking at or replying to emails on my leave and then actually sort of breaking that you've already stated what you're going to do and what you're not going to do and then you kind of break your own rule so I think it's really important that we set it very clearly and we stick to it how does that impact the person receiving that is it going to negatively impact their view of them how much they trust them whether they want to work with them can it have that much of an impact I don't know about having maybe that much of an impact but I guess well maybe it's because I'm a psychologist I'd be going oh you said you weren't going to look I wonder I wonder what was driving you to look at your emails I know maybe not everybody's going to think like that and but I would certainly be wondering oh but you said this now the person actually getting a reply might be happy okay this is another part of it because they're wanting one but the important thing here is when we set the boundary what we do is we're actually training other people but not to expect a reply this is like operant condition and action so even if we reply to somebody one in ten times on a sunday night they'll always be like oh but helaine replied that sunday night before so i'll give it a go again you know so we are we're we're training other people their behavior by how we behave and if we just if we stop and they're never getting a reward from emailing us at those times or having expectations of us they will stop that behavior that's how that's how we work it's just that it's not it's not instant but it is it is important to remember we do have that ability and what can we do to to help ourselves stick to those boundaries again i mean especially if you're a leader it can feel really really difficult um a business owner especially i see it in who you know want to check in and make sure everything's okay how do they set a hard boundary and stick to it i think people do generally find it tricky but what they need to remember is why they're doing it because if they don't get proper if we think about if we don't get proper rest what's going to happen if we have that chronic stress all the time it often leads to mental health or even physical health problems so we must take we must believe and even read about rest read about rest and productivity okay because I think that's quite a motivating factor and so that can help to stick to the boundaries and and sometimes if people find it really hard to do it just for themselves although I would always advocate that's the most important part first I would say look and this has worked when I've worked with leaders before is saying you're not just doing it for you you're actually doing it for your family as well you know and when they can see that sometimes for people I've worked with that's been a little bit of a light bulb moment to go okay because it's not just affecting you as an individual as a leader it's affecting whoever you might be with or whoever else is in your life and that can often help people to shift and then when they do change the behavior they reap the personal rewards as well which hopefully means that it's actually easier to continue to do that for themselves as well and have that self-compassion and go like you deserve to have a rest you deserve to have a break you know it's not um nobody's position means that they need to keep on working there's actually no benefit to that rest advisors has so many benefits but sometimes it helps to look at like the science of that depends on the person sometimes it helps to think well who else is benefiting from me sticking to those boundaries so dr elaine has just laid out how to set boundaries you need to be really clear about what you will and won't do and stick to it and also don't break your own rules but i have to ask leanne what if people are thinking this all sounds great in theory but my boss is never going to accept this i totally understand that fear and at the risk of being a typical psychologist it really will depend it's going to depend on your organization, its culture and the behaviors of the leaders around you and that's important.

17:10Elaine mentioned that leaders who model this behavior actually give other people the permission to do the same so look for that. It's almost like someone has to go first and hopefully that's your leader and it's so important because there's science behind rest and recovery. It turns out there's actual research on what proper rest does for your brain and your performance when you come back and And we're about to hear some statistics that might change how you think about your holiday forever. So after this very short break, we're going to rejoin Leanne and Dr. Elaine and discover exactly why rest makes you more productive.

17:43We're going to hear that shocking story from a listener about the toxic workplace. Plus, Dr. Elaine will give us her strategy for the inevitable return to work inbox chaos. Don't go anywhere. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast now? network. We actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work. And we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode. And two out of three of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not going to say which.

18:17Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you, we need to do this in threes. The HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination. Or business professional. Seamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business and brands as well.

18:50It is. It's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that will be right up your street. personally i enjoyed can balsamic vinegar make beer taste better it can and are we all just status seeking monkeys i am go and listen to nudge wherever you get your podcast but come back yeah come back definitely come because nudge isn't as good as this so come back i'll cut that out keep that in

19:23it's interesting what you said there in terms of sometimes people understanding the impact and understanding the why can be really powerful so what do we know about rest and recovery and what does that mean for our future productivity and performance well rest obviously there's different

19:38Dr. Elaine Smith:types of rest but obviously rest means a new behavior it's like a change of behavior there's also that saying that there's changes as good as a rest right so even in that way i think doing something different rejuvenates us right having a change of pace and a change of routine in itself but what we do know is that rest boosts productivity obviously it helps soothe our nervous system it has all these sort of mental health and physical health benefits the way i kind of would overall describe rest or being in a different if you're born on holiday to be in a different environment is that it gives us different perspective on life we can spend so long in our own little bubble and we just see life from a very similar lens each day but I think going on holiday or having a break is almost like zooming out of that and people find like they're more creative so rest also leads to creativity people have ideas and sometimes people think about what am I doing with my life and you know in a positive way and so I think yeah there are so many benefits of rest and when we're when we're truly rested we can then come back and be our peak performance which is also what we want because companies spend a lot of money on annual leave you know it's a very costly business and we and we know in the UK in particular anyway people get generally get quite generous holidays you know it's just costing a lot of money so we want people it's win-win you know we want people to feel fully rested because the organization benefits as well as the individual which i think is you know it's hard to argue with i want to go back to what you were saying about about rest because i think there's a bit of a myth that rest means lying on a beach rest means sleeping in late um i know there's plenty of people that that i have in my life that say i can't i can't just sit still i can't that's just not that's just not me what does rest look like really there's physical rest emotional rest there's even spiritual rest and there's all these different types of rest and it's about what fills us up really so you could say going and doing a hobby you know it's rest it's it's rest from our usual stressors or our usual life I guess it's like disconnecting from that part and reconnecting with what fills us up and Now, a lot of people I work with are definitely not the sunbathers all day.

22:16They're busy doing people and they get really restless and they get easily bored.

22:22Dr. Elaine Smith:So it needs to be things that appeal to us, but things that we want to do versus things we feel obligated to do as well. I think that's an important distinction because sometimes what can happen is people can be off and say, oh I'm going to completely do a deep clean of the house or something which for some people actually is quite restful and soothing but for others it isn't and this is an important point as well it's very individual what we find restful and yeah so it's it's not always lying about and it's not and it's not always being still for a lot of people it's actually the opposite of that but we feel relaxed I think that's the most important point we feel relaxed and we feel like we're being energized by what we're doing and often that's not the same as what we're doing every day and what we're doing at work i love to cook that's my resting and recovery activity so i start to get restless when i'm in a hotel for too long and i can't cook um i know al loves coding and i don't get it because it feels like work because he's sat in front of a computer yeah but it's not up to us to decide but i guess when it yeah when it feels like that person feels obliged to do something or or this is the other one and need to be productive and often that's fed by people who might experience traits of perfectionism as well or because as you mentioned this about societal society's views on rest which is often that's lazy or the word lazy accompanies it and and then people feel like i have to do something productive but if we re-educate people about what it actually means I think they would use resting time differently.

24:06This actually came from a listener to the show who really wanted this episode to go ahead to get this type of advice. So they were saying, would love to know where you could deal with colleagues who expect that you will check emails whilst on leave. Two examples come to mind. The first time I went on annual leave at my last place, I was basically told to check my emails daily. The justification was that it wasn't reasonable to expect my secretary who also had access to my inbox to decide whether something was urgent and need to be passed on or could wait another time on leave there was a day when I didn't check my emails in those 24 hours a colleague sent multiple slightly pissy emails about not me not replying even though they acknowledged I was on holiday I mean it's shocking examples isn't it shocking examples but I mean in this in this type of culture when we're seeing these types of behaviours from colleagues what what can you do as an individual to try and set that boundary?

25:05Dr. Elaine Smith:Tricky I will just say listening to that I mean that's obviously deep organisational cultural problems there and and those individuals are probably just doing what they could to try and manage the enormous stress but that also doesn't make it okay but that's probably how we can understand it um but yet I guess in those situations now I'm going say it and not saying it's easy but sometimes if we just stick to the facts and just state to people like know your boundaries know when you're going to stop replying know when you're going to have your whole leave and that you're not telling them I won't be you know have it on your out of office explicitly and bold if you must I will not be checking my emails if we're clear with people they actually do prefer it and there's a saying as well that people who you know who don't respond well to boundaries often need them the most right so it's a tough it's a tough sell sometimes because you're going to set boundaries and you're might we could probably expect some people won't like it initially but that's actually all right you know that's part of the process and that's part of the reason we need to set them because these people really really need them and then one time in the future they might actually be grateful for it so it's about just sticking to that like not trying to get emotional with these colleagues and being very matter of fact as much as we can be and not getting sort of drawn in because that's a lot of their stuff isn't it that's a lot of their fears and their anxiety that belongs to them but we can quickly get drawn in into the emotion of that and wanting to be liked and wanting to be helpful and all of that that doesn't really help anybody so we just have to kind of stick to it and be very very strict um i know it's easier said than done but it's very possible um and just be clear you know breannie brown says clear is kind unclear is unkind and i think that's another way of thinking about all of this we just tell people what we're going to do and what we're not going to do and stick to it that's how i would almost summarize this you know that's the best we can do for people and obviously help train them as well.

27:18That even if they send us 100 emails on a Sunday night

27:23Dr. Elaine Smith:for 100 weeks, we're not going to respond. What do you say if somebody's thinking, yeah, I'd like to set a hard boundary alone, but I might get fired for it? I'd certainly hope somebody wouldn't be fired for it. But I can understand what you're saying about the fear. What's going to happen if I do this or if I do that? I would turn it around slightly and say, leader's not just by title. So whether you're a leader or not, there's somebody above you you can lead in this behavior you can be the one to set the tone because what i guarantee is that once you set that boundary others will follow when they see it especially if you are in a leadership role there's definitely there's definitely something about being able to set the boundary and think you know there's other people who are going to go thank goodness so glad they did that because i want to do that now maybe i can do that when i go on the holiday or just in general to say i'm not not replying in the evenings or at weekends and so actually i think you set the tone you go you make a decision you do make a decision and you make a decision to commit to this as well and remember that you're not doing anything wrong you're you're entitled to your time outside of work and it's only because of how society's changed that this has become a problem never really used to be a problem we've kind of created it so we need to fix it um and to be made to feel pressure in any way that you have to do something when you don't want to do it well what would we say to children about that you know would say well you have to say no so we can think about it in that way as well um and sometimes i mean you could say that that can cross the line into bullying and harassment as well you know i mean like where those boundaries are but that that can be how it can leave the person like your listener for example just to feel terrible you know receiving that when they're not doing anything wrong they're actually you know trying just to have annual leave and being met with this sort of boiling kind of rage or whatever it was discontent from the organization rather than they've done anything wrong you know it's just absolutely toxic and we do need to fix that we do need to do something about that and as you say i guess you know it's that understanding that this will be uncomfortable and you probably will get some pushback and if you you know most people want to do a great job and be there for the colleagues and support them in the best way that they can but as you say once once those boundaries start to be reinforced through your own behaviour it's going to have an impact on on the other person's behaviour isn't it that modification will start to happen if they see it yeah if they're not getting any reward from constantly contacting no matter what they say if they ramp up the language which kind of what your listeners one sounded like you know ramping up the language the emotional pool it's not fair I'm the secretary that kind of thing and they realise no matter what they say or do you're not replying people will stop that behavior will become extinct that's what happens it's a fact but we must stick to it and remember that fact if you if you reply one in five or ten or twenty times that's a very strong reinforcer for people so it's not just about the volume it's about not doing it at all you know and we have a personal responsibility in that as well so sometimes i would say well if you do keep replying they're going to keep emailing they okay they shouldn't be emailing you out of hours by experience but we have we need to take personal responsibility as well and i was thinking about this too about as a clinical psychologist part of our training is obviously a lot about boundaries because of the therapeutic relationship it's really important we have very strict boundaries so i think that's partly where i come at this from as well um but what that means is it's completely non-negotiable for us like there's there's no negotiation with that so for example client emails me a weekend or whatever I will never reply and never reply and that's to keep very strict healthy therapeutic boundaries I think that is extremely important don't get me wrong and I think this is helpful too I know people for some people in life there's that flexible work and they might do emails at night one or two hours at night because they have to do the school run or something we want a world where it's individual and it's flexible what i would say for that is you can schedule your emails don't get them sent at 11 p.m right need to schedule them for work and time now that i think that's okay and i know a lot of people with family or caring commitments do that but make sure your output is in working hours that's what i would say so you can manage that to best suit you and to train other people i think this is tipping into into bullying harassment type behaviors and setting these boundaries is the only it's the only way to survive this environment um i think ultimately you know long term it's it's it's not it's unless they go through a court to change themselves it's not going to get any faster but boundaries sounds like survival at this point unfortunately in a way it's got to that point um but yeah for longevity for protecting our own health and we think of stress hormones and the damage they can do um yeah we need boundaries to put a line under work and to and fill up our life with stuff that's not work which is really important as well and so that we kind of i mean i know work can be varying levels of importance to people but a lot of people i work with work is a lot of their life you know it fills up a lot of their identity a lot of the reason for being but that becomes bigger the less the less other stuff we have in our life so the less time we spend with family and friends the less time we do hobbies you know we can almost inflate work to a bigger sense of importance by having less in our life so that's another thing i think probably another episode but i think that's important as well i know we've already teased this story but honestly it's kind of kind of shocking isn't it shocking so shocking and dr alone just called that behavior exactly what it is absolutely toxic and honestly hearing that listener's story about being sent angry emails whilst they're on holiday it's hard not to get worked up about that for them it really really is and as we just heard boundaries are survival at this point so this isn't about being polite or professional anymore this is about protecting your mental health from genuinely harmful workplace culture exactly and the psychology she explained chef's kiss even if you reply just once in 10 times you're actually reinforcing that behavior that is operant conditioning in action you are literally training people to harass you but here's the important thing even if you do set those boundaries even if you survive the pushback there's still that moment of truth when you come back from holiday that inbox that anxiety how do you actually prepare for that without ruining the last few days of your break i think we've all been there so this is where dr elaine gets really practical i mean for people listening who are like okay i've got some good tips here some good things that i can do before i go whilst i'm on holiday there is the inevitable re-entry that going back into work that day one that inbox how do you how do you prepare for that on the sunday night before the monday morning how do you prepare for that and how do you deal with with what you're walking into when you get there ideally what i would recommend you actually prepare for that before you even go on holiday because you block out the time for looking at your emails when you get back so obviously it depends what your role is but wherever possible you know how sometimes we can be overly optimistic and think after my holiday i'll sort that after the holiday i'll sort that after the holiday and you come back and you think I really wish pre-holiday me had done that task so what we don't want to do is overload all that stuff at once when we get back because nobody's going to win from that it can feel like there's a compulsion to fill up the diary so block out at least, but depends at least that morning that you get back just to prioritise and that's what you're going to do you're just going to prioritize your your emails and you're going to look at them and you're going to see you could maybe grade them or whatever and see what really needs attention a lot of them as we know probably you know sort of emailed to everybody or you're cc'd in or it's not even that important right so the number is not that important it's more of what you have to engage with so try not to get engrossed in the number of emails you have try to work out how many you actually need to reply to and it's probably quite a small percentage i'd say probably five or ten percent and then um yeah so block out the time remember what you said in your out of office about how long you were going to take to reply and resist the urge for it all to be immediate or feel like I feel like everybody knows that you're back everybody in the whole company knows that you're back and they're all waiting for your reply because they're not you know there might be one or two but they're not all thing is back today back today that's probably more in our mind and just have realistic goals you know you're probably not going to reach inbox zero but what you're going to do is you're going to just manage it have a bit of perspective as well like if it all becomes a lot you feel a bit overwhelmed or anxious, just think these are only emails.

37:22Dr. Elaine Smith:Like really? We need to zoom out sometimes and check ourselves and go these are only emails. If someone was really urgent it'll be passed to somebody else and it's probably been dealt with and you'll probably go through an email like that and see it's actually been resolved. And if you do see that thing, see that's actually what happens if something becomes urgent. That's what should happen anyway um so yeah it's about taking the time and not feeling like you're in this massive rush because you've already set yourself up before your holiday you've got this at least this full morning and you've already told people it might take two or three business days whatever you state so i think the preparation comes comes quite a time before you go back i i think it's so important isn't it you know something that i'll always say and and i have now absorbed it as well and he's always saying how can I be as kind as possible to future Al and I kind of think they're saying like how can I be as kind as possible to future Lee and I should probably leave the dishwasher before I go to bed because future Lee I would love that in the morning to come into a clean kitchen no exactly that yeah and I think we do have a tendency if something's a couple of weeks ahead like your return to work you know you can become a bit blasey or like just like all if it's a boring task for one you don't like you'll leave it but no I do think it's about definitely thinking what's the reality when I come back what could I do now that is going to make my life a little bit easier or more pleasant in the future if somebody's listening and going I just need the one thing what's the one thing Elaine is there just one thing they could do just remember that people actually prefer clarity we are being kind to people by telling them what we're going to do and what we're not going to do we're kind of being unkind by being vague even though that can feel better in the moment I might look at my emails i might be delayed in replying no just just let's just be clear with each other and then that actually makes life easier and i'm thinking you know it's it's you know boundaries are healthy you know just think boundaries are healthy we need them we try and set them for for children all the time because we say that but we don't really apply it to ourselves as adults as much so that's why i would say you just be really clear unapologetically clear about what you're going to do and usually it works out absolutely fine that was the amazing dr elaine smith clinical psychologist and expert in workplace mental health and also lives about three miles from where my grandma used to live in edinburgh so these are the three key key takeaways that i can see first of all your brain is literally wired to be anxious when you stop checking so it's not a character flaw it's learned behavior number two is that clear boundaries aren't rude they're actually kinder than being vague.

40:03And of course, number three, proper rest doesn't make you lazy. It makes you dramatically more productive when you return. And let's not forget that Dr. Elaine's advice is grounded in proper psychology. And we like that. We talked about operant conditioning, which explains why replying just once reinforces bad behavior. We also talked about anxiety curves that show us why we need to ride the wave rather than constantly checking our emails for a moment of relief. And of course, those practical strategies like blocking out return time and writing crystal clear out of office messages. You've got everything you need to get boundary setting right now.

40:41So if you've got a holiday coming up and you're already feeling anxious about switching off, or maybe you're dealing with colleagues who expect you to be available 24-7, Dr Elaine's just given you permission to set those boundaries and the psychological tools to actually stick to them. And please remember, you are not being difficult when you refuse to check emails on holiday you're modeling healthy behavior that others desperately need to see and honestly future you will thank present you for being brave enough to truly disconnect i'm pretty sure your family will thank you for that as well and of course as mentioned dr elaine's holiday headspace masterclass this is the one that takes you to the five practical steps for maximum holiday rest you can find out much more about that at dr elainesmith.com we'll put a link in the show notes oh and if you listen this far then you're going to get a 20 discount just use the code truth lies work 20 again that's going to be in the show notes lee it's not particularly expensive is it it's not even at full price it is only 39 british pounds so what 50 at the most less than that and you'll get 20 off so go and head over to dr elaine's website we will leave all the links and that promo code in the show notes so off you go dear friend book that time off and actually enjoy it this is truth lies and work and we will see you next week when we're on our holiday