How important is recharging to you? No, I’m not talking about the importance of keeping your gadgets charged. We already know that we should always be charging all of our digital leashes. What I’m talking about is taking downtime away from the constantly connected worlds that we live in and allowing yourself to mentally and physically recharge.

Many of us work long hours, often times deep into nights and over weekends. Even when we do get some downtime from the office, such as on the weekends, that time is usually filled with everything else in our lives that demand our attention whether they be household projects, cleaning, errand running, or a number of other to-dos.

All of this slowly wears us down, especially if you’re adding other things such as a lack of solid sleep, high stress environments, a lack of exercise or a sound diet to the mix - all areas that need to be prioritized and addressed.

A few areas that I have found helpful over the years are:

1. Schedule a weekly date night with your significant other where you commit to leaving your phone face down with no talk about the stressors of life.

2. Take a hike to get out into nature. It’ll help you lower your stress, get some exercise, and enjoy nature for a while.

3. Make fun plans for your weekends. Since we live in wine country, many times this means spending a few hours at a vineyard, even if we have errands to run afterward.

4. Find a fun meal to cook. While you may not have time to really cook during weeknights, spend some time searching for a new recipe. Use Pinterest or subscribe to NYT Cooking. It’s fun to explore new foods and grow your capabilities in the kitchen.

5. Take a vacation. There are many studies, such as one from the U.S. Travel Association, that show that the vast majority of Americans do not use all of their yearly PTO time. Your company provides it to you for a reason. Use it.

When you do get an opportunity to take a vacation, which is your chance to disconnect and recharge, actually disconnect instead of remaining plugged in and connected though albeit on a slower schedule. I know I’ve been guilty of this at times.

I might not spend all day on email and Slack as I do during a regular workday but I’ll still check in a few times throughout the day. Even if I don’t take action on the emails or messages coming in, I still know what’s going on and therefore may be adding stress into the getaway because of knowing what’s awaiting me when I get home or feeling an urge to deal with the situation while away.

Even if we manage to break away from email and Slack, we’re still connected via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social channels. We’re sharing photos, commenting on status updates and the like.

I have known some people who will actually delete these apps off of their phones to prevent from being connected while they’re on vacation. And guess what? Everything was just fine.

While I have shared only a few of the ways that I find to recharge, what ways do you do use?