As executive-level women leaders, you have a lot on your shoulders, which can contribute to increased stress, anxiety, and poor health. Prioritizing your wellbeing is essential to maintaining both your personal and professional health. Not only is your own wellbeing important, but so is the mental and overall wellbeing of your team.

You need to take care of yourself first, so that you can then take care of others. As busy women, we put our wellbeing on the backburner and put everyone else’s needs before our own. This does little for our health and happiness. Can you relate?

Representing the tourism and hospitality industries, you know how beneficial travel can be for our mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, social, and professional wellness.  Of course, it’s not possible to be on vacation mode all the time, so here are a couple tips to approach your personal wellbeing and the wellbeing of your team this year.

1. Spend time in nature and the community.

Research shows how beneficial time in natural, blue and green spaces can be on our mental and overall wellbeing. It’s no wonder we get a surge of emotion and relaxation at the beach. Bodies of water are shown to help decrease stress and anxiety levels. Studies by Project Blue Health say that as little as a 20-minute walk near a body of water can decrease stress over a long period of time. Physicians in the UK during the pandemic were prescribing time in nature like gardens and parks to patients struggling with anxiety and depression.

If your day is packed with meetings, whether you work from home or at the office, take short breaks and go outdoors. Bonus points if your location is near a body of water, a park, or gardens. Encourage your employees to take breaks for themselves and take a walk outdoors as well. Consider moving team meetings outdoors to get sunshine on your skin and fresh air. During lunch, take it outdoors and disconnect from your workload for that time.

Every destination around the world has something unique to offer, whether that is nature, landscapes, community, or culture. Communities are incredibly diverse and can be an opportunity for personal growth, learning, connection, and inspiration. This is especially key for remote workers. Incorporate into your weekly schedule time that immerses you into your destination’s culture and community. Perhaps on the weekends or once your workday is over, consider a volunteer event or even organize one for your team. Being of service to others and making a difference can help give our emotional wellbeing and personal fulfillment a boost.

2. Use all of your vacation days.

The key word here is “all.” How many of your vacation days do you typically use? What about actually using them and not staying home and continuing to work? A five-year study by the Wisconsin Medical Journal showed that women who took vacations only once in two years or once in six years had higher odds of depression and tension compared to women who traveled two times or more each year. It’s one thing to take a vacation and continue to stay glued to your computer; it’s another to take a vacation and use that time to connect with your family, the locals, and immerse yourself in nature, spend time doing things that interest and excite you, and have experiences that bring you inner clarity, peace, and joy.

The word “vacation” stems from the Latin word vacationem, meaning “leisure, freedom, exemption, being free from duty, immunity earned by service.” Vacations are a time for you to reset, relax, and replenish. Travel is a powerful tool for this, but you need to be mindful about it and set intentions. Setting intentions for your time off and your trips is essential to helping you obtain the feelings, transformations, and outcomes that you’re looking for. Ask yourself how you want to feel during your vacation. How do you want to feel and what you want your life to look like when you return home?

Just as important as it is for you as a leader to take your vacations, it’s also crucial that you encourage and support your team to use their vacation days. Build a company culture where travel is embraced. Provide proper resources, support, and guidance for your employees to plan their vacation days. Be sure to partake in the planning of your own trip and don’t hand it fully over to a travel agent or your spouse to take care of, even if you’re busy. A study published in the journal of  Applied Research in Quality of Life showed that the highest spike in happiness actually came during the planning stage of a vacation.

Everyone needs time to feel fulfilled and to boost their mental, emotional, and overall wellbeing, all of which travel can do. A company culture where traveling is accepted and promoted can lead to a happier, more inclusive and accepting, more creative and healthier workplace. There are many ways to embrace travel in the workplace that stems beyond vacation days. Consider offering sabbaticals, volunteer opportunities abroad or in the local community and encourage employees to talk about their trips. Have a bulletin board where employees can post their travel photos, create a show-and-tell-type of dedicated time where team members can share something they bought on their trips or talk about the cultural experiences they had, or create a vacations-only Facebook group where employees can share stories, post photos, give travel tips and recommendations.

Think about the ways that you’ll approach wellness in 2023. What can you do differently than previous years? What is your company already doing but needs to do more of? It’s a brand new year and a brand new opportunity to reshape what wellness looks like and means for yourself and your team.