The powerful effects of taking a weekend break

Nothing beats the restorative power of a break. Taking time out from your everyday life does the world of good to help energise, calm and relax the mind and body.

When your mind is relaxed, you function more effectively and decrease the chance of mental burnout, fatigue, anxiety, low mood and lack of focus. As a result, putting work aside – whether it’s for an hour, a short break or a longer holiday – actually improves performance.

When we feel rested, we perform better, we’re more creative and productive, able to digest food more easily and our body becomes able to move more freely allowing better blood circulation and oxygenation. Taking time out for a brief change of scenery and exploring new places is the perfect way to allow the body to rest and switch off from everyday stresses and circumstances.  Being in a different environment, especially surrounded by nature, really does reduce feelings of anxiety and helps you to feel more alive and energised by encountering new experiences and challenging your brain to process thoughts and emotions in a slightly different way that it usually does. 

With the UK having more beach towns that you can shake a stick of rock at, we have pulled together a selection of some of our favourite places to escape to for the weekend or a quick day to help you switch off and recharge. 

Southwold 

With lines of colourful beach huts, a gorgeous little high street and even a working lighthouse, Southwold is an unspoilt, very quirky English seaside with a beautiful pier, twenties-style cinema and a restored historic lifeboat to discover.  Surrounded by lovely little villages to explore nearby boasting pubs, tearooms and independent boutiques, it's very much one of our favourite spots for some gentle R and R.  

Credit to: @coastaljournal⁠ and @letsgosouthwold⁠

St Ives 

The lively fishing port of St Ives is awash with quaint fishermen's cottages and cobbled streets and has a spectacular harbour full of lively restaurants, cafes, galleries and artisan shops as well as a shoreline of one of the UK's best beaches. The perfect spot to escape to to switch off from everyday life, try out some watersports or take a relaxing boat trip around.  

Whitstable 

The Kent coast is dotted with picture-perfect towns and hands down our favourite spot is Whitstable. Fresh seafood, oyster shacks, a pretty harbour with an outside daily craft market and some of Kent’s best restaurants including ‘The Whitstable Oyster Co’ and ‘Samphire’ call this chic little seaside spot home. Stay the weekend in a fisherman’s hut or a chic airbnb townhouse, wander by pastel-painted shopfronts and go for sundowners at the famous Old Neptune pub. Only an hour away by train from central London it's the perfect place to switch off and recharge.