Take a break from work for your mental health
Work, work, work. That is what most of us do every day. But as the holiday season is approaching, it is time to take a break in order to maintain the balance of your physical and mental health, The Jakarta Post's Ida Indawati Khouw reported.
JAKARTA (JP): Hani feels that her life is in disorder since a few years ago when she started to get bored with her routine and failed to become what she dreamed of becoming.
She always sighs that she could not easily make friends, couldn't make plans for her life, has no ideal religious life, sometime suffers from insomnia and so on.
The 38-year-old single woman, who changed her job from a self- employed tailor to work for a garment company in Tangerang, West Java, earlier this year, is not sure about the cause of her problems. One thing which is clear is that she has never had a real holiday in her life.
She said she had never realized whether she needed the day off. "I never went far away for a few days during the holidays because I had no assistant to help me with my job (as a tailor). Even when I had the chance to take a day off I couldn't really free myself from thinking about my job."
Now that she has other people to share the job burden and responsibilities, she has decided to try something new. This holiday season she is joining a tour to Bali with some of her colleagues.
"I still can't imagine whether I will really enjoy traveling and forget about my work or other serious things... The tour program itself is quite hectic, I don't know whether there's time to relax," she said.
Too much work without play will make Jack's life dull, so the proverb goes. Almost everybody agrees that we need some leisure time to escape from routine activities. And there are many different ways to do so.
Most people opt for travel. Travel agencies are quite busy during "big" holiday seasons like this December, with Christmas, Idul Fitri and the New Year's Eve coming one after another.
"All flights and tour groups have been fully booked since mid November," said Haryanto Tanujaya, the branch manager of Buana Leisure travel agency in East Jakarta.
All of the agency's employees are not allowed to take leave during the peak season, but Haryanto will make sure that there will be some days off later. A vacation is indeed a must to prevent the boredom of doing the same activities the whole year round; it is important to become relaxed and leave things behind. For him holiday means going somewhere far from home to enjoy sight-seeing.
Like Haryanto, Firman Lubis, a lecturer at the School of Medicine of the University of Indonesia, also loves to go traveling, especially to places which have historical value.
He has no plan to travel somewhere this December due to the fasting month but this does not necessarily mean that he would not be able to enjoy the holidays because for him it means a time when he tries to forget all of his routine activities.
Holidays do not always mean traveling and one or two days is enough, according to Benny Joesoef, deputy finance director of DaimlerChrysler.
With that philosophy, Germany-educated Benny has never taken leave since he returned to the country three years ago. He said he kept on working because of his heavy work-load and responsibilities but he still feels well.
"It's not because I'm a workaholic, I don't think I'm that kind of person. For me taking a rest during the weekend is enough, even sometimes I go to my office on Saturday if necessary and it's not a burden for me as I don't see the job as something to be afraid of.
"I enjoy my job, and that's the important point, but that doesn't mean I never feel exhausted," he said.
He said that he doesn't do anything special during his leisure time. Eating out, for example, is enough for him.
"What is important during our leisure time is to do something different so that we don't feel bored," he said.
But if they have a chance to go on a long holiday, can busy people really forget about their job?
"Yes," said a relatively "busy" person, Joseph F.P. Luhukay, a noted figure in the Indonesian computer world and a partner in the consulting firm, Ernst & Young. But he added that in the first one or two days of a vacation, he might not be able to keep his mind free from his job affairs.
He revealed how his life was "cut" from the Internet connection during a vacation to Nepal and Tibet last June.
"I felt I had left something behind when I found no access to the Internet there, but it was okay and I had more time to sleep," he said. He sleeps only about four hours every day because he wants to spend as much time as possible benefiting others.
He finds holidays important as a time to recharge his energy, to relax and be with his family. "Holiday is the time when I can basically master my own schedule. It is not determined by anybody else as it is during office hours."
Balance
Psychologists Julia Chandra and Diennaryati Tjokro from the School of Psychology at the University of Indonesia say that taking a vacation is very important to maintain the balance of one's physical and mental health.
"Holiday is needed to give our mind and body a rest, and that does not always mean traveling because the principle is to do things which are different from routine activities. It acts as an interlude," Chandra said.
That's why she criticized travel agencies which usually arrange tight schedules during tours. "The holiday makers will be in a rush, become physically exhausted and then gain nothing. It defeats the purpose of the holiday," she said.
Chandra said that people could also go somewhere which have a different atmosphere from their own place of living.
"I think that Jakartans who choose Bandung for the weekend are not having a real holiday because the condition of the city is more or less the same as in Jakarta, in particular the prevalent traffic jams," she said.
"For me myself, I don't feel I need to go somewhere during the holiday. I am a person who holds the principle that life is for work, that's why anything I do is reflected in my job. It is enough for me to spend the holiday at home by creating a different environment," she said.
Separately, Tjokro said that those who have never had leisure time could, for instance, have psychosomatic illnesses.
"It's simply like being a vehicle, that if we use it continuously it will break down," she added.
That's why Tjokro said that it doesn't matter how much one works, you will always need time to rest. The problem is there are people who do not know how to spend their leisure time. For many people it is just their body which takes a rest, and not their mind.
"Actually, a holiday can be just involve simple things like chatting with family members, doing funny things together or just loafing around. The main thing is that it should be psychologically satisfying," she said.