The beach holiday. The greatest anti-depressant

I’m currently away for a 5 day beach break with my family.

We’re staying on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, in a small seaside town called Mudjimba, well away from the chaos of Noosa.

The power of the beach holiday is in all the things it removes. In this case it’s removed traffic, phone alerts, routine. It’s replaced it with the beach, an activity you enjoy with your whole body.

I always leave the beach wanting to bottle up some of the feeling I get when I’m here. I’m busy, but relaxed. I’m active, but not hungry. It’s stressful (2 kids and a dog), but I don’t get stressed. Sadly it doesn’t take me long to fall into the usual stress of day to day.

It makes me realise just how much my mental health is affected by environment. Environment is not easy to change. James Altucher judges his whole life by whether he improved his physical, emotional, creative and spiritual health every day.

How can we bring the beach spirit to the city? Learn to not take ourselves so seriously? Be ok with relaxing and enjoying the moment. I’ve also clearly brought my own flaws to the beach. Instead of enjoying a relaxed cycle this morning, I was still looking at my heart rate to make sure I was pushing myself hard enough. Why?

The #1 thing… get rid of your phone.