How To Relax On A Budget

Vacations carry important benefits for stress management, productivity and health. Unfortunately, many people don’t take vacations because of time or money constraints. Luckily, there are ways you can enjoy many of the benefits a vacation would bring, but without spending as much time or money as you would on a ‘formal vacation.’ So, for those who don’t have weeks to take or thousands to spend, I have these creative mini-vacation strategies:

         Take A Quiet Day: Take a full day without          answering your phone or connecting to the internet. This will help you disconnect from the stresses and demands from your daily life, allowing you to really relax. Tell the people in your life that you’re leaving for the day (or the weekend!), and have a vacation at home.

• Play 'Hometown Tourist': You may be surprised at how much fun it is to be a tourist in your own town. Get a Fodor’s Guide (or look up resources on the internet, especially About.com) and plan a fun time as though you were new to your city. Try to avoid chain restaurants and anything you normally do, and try unique things that you’ve been meaning to try, or perhaps that you’d never heard of before.
• Be A Hotel Guest: It can also be surprisingly relaxing to stay in a nearby hotel. I have friends who do this, and I used to think they were nuts. Why spend money to stay in a hotel when you live nearby and can sleep in your own bed for free, right? Then they told me about all the fun things that most of us don’t have in our own homes: room service, brand-new little soaps, whirlpool bath tubs, pools and saunas, fun attractions in walking distance, maid service, etc. Basically, you get to immerse yourself in clean, nicely-decorated surroundings that don’t have piles of laundry and other lying around (reminding us of the work that needs to be done), where you can turn off your cell phone and become un-reachable, where you can close the thick drapes and sleep in as late as you want to and then roll out of bed to a breakfast someone else prepares, or even order it delivered to your room! Suddenly, the idea didn’t sound so crazy after all…
• Visit a Day Spa: If you can’t afford the time or money it would cost to go on a traditional vacation, you can spend a fraction of the money and a mere few hours at a day spa getting yourself a heavenly massage that will leave your body relaxed and your mind clear. For a real treat, spend an entire afternoon there, lolling in a plush bathrobe while getting facials and other skin treatments as well as body work done. Then go home and watch a movie or curl up in bed with a good book. You’ll feel like you had a great vacation, but it will have cost you much less, which may reduce even more stress! (Click here for a list of the best hotel and resort spas in the U.S. and Canada.)
• Stay In Your Jammies: Remember Cameron Fry, the character in Ferris Buller’s Day Off who would actually get sick when he needed some time off, preferring to stay in bed all day to recover from the stresses of his life? In some ways, he had the right idea, but you don’t have to wait for stress to make you sick before you take a pajama day. Yes, here’s another one that sounds silly, but can really make you feel like you’ve had a refreshing break. It works just how it sounds; stay in your pajamas all day, relaxing and doing only what you feel like. Want to surf the ‘net for hours, then watch “The Twilight Zone” on the Sci Fi channel? Want to do a daily cryptogram from the newspaper (or games from this site), then eat a big bowl of jello? Watch three Star Wars movies in a row, or a whole Sex In The City DVD? You get the idea. The pajamas are only to set the tone; the pajama day involves a whole attitude, a worldview of relaxation and proud laziness that lasts for an entire day. Sometimes that’s just what you need.

If you really don’t have the money or resources to take a vacation of any type, it’s important for you to do something that relieves stress regularly. This article can help those who want to feel relaxed and refreshed, but can’t spend even a weekend or full day away.