The Art of Escape

Was your last vacation less than soul-satisfying? This year, make a mindful getaway, so you feel renewed and refreshed all summer long—and beyond.

By Constance Hale

One of my favorite vacations ever began with a nasty fight over my laptop. It was mid—June, and my then—fiancé and I were packing for a road trip that would take us on a wide and wiggly circle through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. As he was gathering up the gear piled at the front door, Bruce noticed my black backpack. "You're not taking your computer, are you? " he asked in disbelief. ` "I just thought I'd want to check email,' I confessed sheepishly. Bruce turned, shaking his head, and carried the tent to the pickup. I slipped out the back door and slid my laptop behind the passenger seat. ` Moments before we were to drive off, Bruce charged into the house, the backpack in hand. "This is a vacation," he boomed. "You are not taking this computer." Deciding my relationship with him was more important than a few emails, I relented. ` But I made the mistake of checking my voicemail in Steamboat Springs. A few phone calls later, I was embroiled in a dispute between my boss and a woman I supervised. At the next campground, I spent an hour ironing things out.

The next day, my tension collided with Bruce's frustration with the way work was infecting our trip. On the road to Mesa Verde National Park, I insisted we stay in the lodge. (I couldn't imagine being cooped up in a tent together.) "Fine," Bruce said. "You stay there. I'll stay in the campground."

But in an instance of divine grace, a terrifying storm descended, closing the campground and sending Bruce back to a very chastened me. We snuggled in our room and watched as dark clouds rolled overhead and jagged bolts of lightning lit the desert below. When it was over, we took a bottle of wine to a great vantage point, watched the storm's blazing aftermath of a sunset, and resolved to savor every remaining mile of our trip.

And we did. We hiked in the Anasazi ruins, camped in Monument Valley, and swam in Utah lakes. I stopped picking up voicemail and finally left work behind. My mind slowed, my breathing deepened, and I started to take in the landscape and the person seeing it with me. Finally relaxed, I had an epiphany along Nevada's Route 50, "the loneliest road in America." Within two months I transferred to another division of my company, and within 12 months, I opted out—for a less stressful and more satisfying freelance life.

You'd think, given how harried most of our lives have become, that wed eagerly embrace such chances to unhook. But we don't Americans, even those of us who've made yoga a part of our lives, just aren't very good at relaxing. We're famous for getting less vacation than our counterparts in other industrialized countries (16.6 days a year versus 25 or so for the Europeans; often we don't even take all the vacation we're entitled to). When we do get away, many of us can't resist the impulse to stay plugged in. The line between office and home, work and leisure, grows thinner by the day.

Part of this is unavoidable, given the culture that surrounds us. In Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States, historian Cindy Aron writes that "Americans have long engaged in a love/hate battle with their vacations." Why? Vacations put at risk the very things that "made the middle class the middle class"—like discipline, industry, and sobriety, she says. Aron's research carried her through the mid—20th century, but the discomfort with letting go persists into the 21st. "Both by choice as well as by compulsion, Americans inject work into play," Aron writes—whether by bringing the BlackBerry, going on cultural tours, or pushing ourselves into extreme adventures.

But a vacation can be much more than a change of scenery and a time—out from our usual routines. Done right, it can be an opportunity to still the mind, disengage from everyday thought patterns, and connect with our deeper selves. "The promise of an intelligently designed vacation is the possibility of finding balance," says Stephen Cope, director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living and the author of The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living. "The yogic view is that when the mind quiets down, we connect with prajna, or wisdom—the already illumined part of the mind. We wake the ability to savor experience. If you plan a restful vacation, this will happen."

Before you go

Planning a restful vacation sounds simple, but—because it can mean letting go of familiar habits or saying no to family expectations—it often isn't. Laura Hopkins had to think creatively after she began to realize that an annual vacation at a beach house in Rhode Island with her extended family was often as stressful as it was relaxing. "The kids have a blast," says Hopkins, 47, who lives in Seattle, "but my mother gets neurotic, my stepfather has to set the dinner conversation topic each night, my husband feels like an outsider, and too many people just don't like each other.'

After watching how her husband spent his time avoiding the family dynamics by working compulsively on his laptop, and after long conversations with him, Hopkins somewhat reluctantly let go of the notion of "the perfect family vacation." She still goes to Block Island each year—"The kids love it, and I make sure I spend lots of time cycling, sailing, or going to the beach"—but her husband, Brett Baba, now spends that week windsurfing on the Columbia River. Then, on almost every summer weekend and for 10 days in August, Hopkins, Baba, and their two adolescents go to a cabin at Lake Wenatchee, where there is no telephone, no TV, no leash for the dog—and much easier family relations.

Cope, the Kripalu Institute director, relies on a few guidelines to make sure that his own vacations are restful. First, he tries to plan his annual vacation while he's on a mini—vacation—perhaps a weekend out of town—when he's already dropped down to a quieter mindset and can "check in with what my soul really longs for." (For more from Cope on how to choose the right vacation, see "Create the Perfect Getaway," page 78.)

Second, he allows himself ample time away from work—usually three or four weeks at a time—and he gets himself into a very different world from his daily one. "My life here in western Massachusetts is intense and highly routinized," the 56—year—old explains. "I direct this institute, I do research projects, I teach—I often work seven days a week. I love it, but it's very busy and fast paced. I find that I have to get out of here."

"Out of here" for Cope is often Key West, Florida, where the climate is warm and the achievement mentality is AWOL. Cope never takes his computer or cell phone, to remind himself he doesn't need to be connected to his office every day.

Finally, Cope gives himself permission to do whatever he wants. "I cycle, I swim, I lie on the beach, I read novels," he says. "I don't force myself to do any particular asana practice—sometimes I want to do Bikram, sometimes I want to stretch on my own, sometimes I want to sit on a rock and meditate."

Cope has noticed, however, that the first few days of this restorative vacation are often filled with almost frenetic activity. "I go through three or four days of withdrawal," he says, laughing. "I obsessively clean the condo."

Before you go

Whether you call it a withdrawal from workaholism or a natural transition, the few days after you stop working and before you start letting go involve an important shifting of gears. Marc Schoen, a clinical psychologist and assistant clinical professor at UCLA's School of Medicine, has studied what he calls the "Let Down Effect"—the dropping of the immune response that accompanies sudden relaxation after a period of great stress. It's often what causes people to get sick right at the beginning of a vacation.

"When we get stressed or have a physical injury, our immune system produces proteins—cytokines—that kick up the immune system," Schoen explains. When we suddenly reduce stress by plopping on a beach, the immune system lets down its guard. "We experience a quick drop in cytokines," he says. "Any infection we might have had in our body takes over."

The key, Schoen says, is to intentionally slow the process of relaxation down, making it more likely that you'll draw down the cytokines gradually. One way to do this is to keep your energy up on that vulnerable last night of your everyday routine. "Do yoga poses that lift your energy," he says.

While you're away

Charu Rachlis, 49, a Bay Area yoga teacher and native of Brazil, sees "doing things" as part of the American culture. "It seems to be an inner hunger," she observes. She has noticed that to many Americans, vacations aren't satisfying unless they are packed with activity. "But then they come back tired," she notes. "In Brazil, we love to just hang out."

On a recent monthlong trip with her husband and ten—year—old daughter, Rachlis realized that she herself was in danger of doing too much; she was returning to Brazil for the first time in four years and would be seeing countless friends and family members.

"I asked myself, What do I really need to recharge my batteries?" she says. "I needed not to jump from this life to something else, but to unwind first." So, for the first 10 days the three went to Jericoacoara, "a very low—key place" on the northeastern coast of Brazil, far from her family in Rio. "We decided to start by being by ourselves, being with the beach, being with the sun. I turned off my yoga teacher and did not feel obliged to practice—I swam, I walked. There was no agenda. Every day was just to live."

The right escape needn't be as exotic as Jericoacoara, and a restful vacation needn't last a month. For David Thornton, a 44—year—old stay—at—home dad in Berkeley, California, restoration comes in two four—day camping trips a year.

Thornton's job is to take care of his two daughters, three and eight years old, and to do most of the shopping, cooking, and laundry for his household. With the exception of an hour at night when his wife takes over and he walks the dog, it's a 24/7 responsibility. "Since my primary job is taking care of the kids," he says, "my vacations involve getting away from them."

They also involve connecting deeply with nature and practicing silence. Going backpacking with two friends in Yosemite or the Desolation Wilderness, Thornton says, "is a 180 from my daily life. We don't talk on the trail, so there's a lot of contemplative time. The physical part of backpacking in the Sierra, getting to the top of a hill and seeing miles and miles of beautiful mountains, is exhilarating. It renews my appreciation of nature and allows me to come back to my daily life with a fresh pair of eyes. It gives me a fresh start."

While you're away

San Francisco yoga teacher and travel writer Stephanie Levin, the author of The Smart Guide to Yoga, says that as soon as she arrives at a destination after a long flight, she takes 15 minutes to do one or two poses to reverse the downward flow of energy caused by sitting on a plane. "I take a long hot bath, then I spread a towel on the floor of my room, lie down resting my lower legs on the seat of a chair, and place a lavender—filled silk bag over my eyes." (See "Airborne Asanas," page 22, for more anti—jet—lag poses.)

There are other ways to create meditative time: Take candles, lavender—filled eye bags, and essential oils along for your hotel room. Book a massage or sign up for a yoga class. Or just take time to sit still in parks and plazas.

Jillian Pransky, a 38—year—old Manhattan yoga teacher who leads retreats, notices that even people who choose one of the most restorative vacations imaginable, a yoga retreat in Mexico, can have a hard time getting into a quiet mindset.

"I draw from the New York metropolitan area," Pransky says. "My clients arrive on Sunday piqued, harried, with stories about how stressful the travel was, making even more stress with their stress. Once the retreat starts, they get rattled when they realize how much agitation is in their systems. When you start to relax, you can get a sense of ungroundedness, even a feeling of freefalling."

One way Pransky helps people through this is with an exercise she calls Eye Open Savasana. While she is leading people through it, Pransky talks them through a process of understanding what it feels like to be relaxed, and then understanding how to maintain this feeling for hours and hours—and, with practice, all the way home. (See "Learn to Stay Quiet," page 81.)

Coming home

Almost everyone who succeeds in having a truly restorative vacation will wax ecstatic about how their way of thinking, sensing, and being went through a change. Getting outside your life, getting into your body, and using meditation and asanas to slow down and be in the present all foster this. But how do you elongate the effects of a successful break?

"I am growing to the belief that we don't 'carry' relaxation back to our lives,"Pransky says. "It doesn't linger like a vaccination. It's something that you practice in your life, in choices you make every day. Choosing to take breaks, choosing certain techniques like lighting candles or focusing on the breath, choosing who you're keeping in your life, choosing not to check your cell phone when you&339;re in the car with your kids, choosing to be in the moment."

For Laura Hopkins, practicing relaxation means going through preparations for her Lake Wenatchee weekends in a mindful way. The process of making the escape, she says, is as restorative as being there. "I go to a yoga class in the morning," she says, "and then I take a few hours to throw the leftovers into the cooler, pick up the kids, and get out of town before rush hour. The joy of escaping the city is delicious, and when I start seeing the deer and smelling the pines, I start to unwind." The weekend is not a vacation, though.

"Vacations are outside your life. You have to do a whole lot of work to leave and your obligations are here when you come back. You pay a penalty," Hopkins says. "What's nice about these weekends is that they are part of my life; there is no penalty."

This is practicing relaxation the way Pransky defines it. "Our daily routines are not going to change that much," Pransky notes, "so it comes down to how we do things, whether we take a yoga class before a day of packing, or five deep breaths before a meeting."

Pransky's philosophical point is echoed by physical therapist and yoga teacher Judith Hanson Lasater, 59. "Originally yoga was for healthy people who wanted to go deeply into themselves," Lasater says. "Now we use it therapeutically, almost medicinally, as a tool to help us push through our stress and exhaustion." Lasater recalls her youth and the kinds of relaxing rituals her parents observed. "We used to have the front porch with a swing, the midday rest, and a Sabbath where you couldn't do anything because everything was closed. But the pace and difficulty of life has changed," she says. "It's like you're in a batting cage, and where the ball used to come at you every 15 seconds, now it comes every five seconds."

The only antidote, she says, is to create some space to find rest, right here, right now. "Take 20 minutes every day," she says—less time than you'd spend watching a TV show. Lie down on the floor, put your legs up, cover your eyes, and rest. This is a conscious withdrawal from the stimuli of the world. It's a conscious choice, a deep willingness to be absolutely still and quiet and present.

"That's the only vacation there is."

Constance Hale lives in Oakland, California. Her stories have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Health, and the Los Angeles Times. Create the Perfect Getaway

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