Breaking news - holidays are good for you

I have the data to prove it

I have just returned home after a two week holiday on beautiful Cardigan Bay on the coast of West Wales - and I bring you startling news. Yes, holidays are good for your health. Now before you accuse me of stating the bleedin’ obvious, remember that sometimes the annual getaway can be a period of great emotional strain, with travel disruption, excessive food and drink consumption and the odd family row leaving you feeling like you need….well, a holiday.

Our holiday in a clifftop rental home with stunning views we shared with our son an daughter-in-law and two young grandchildren did not promise to be exactly restful. The weather forecast - which turned out to be accurate - was unpromising and we had promised to give the young parents a break by responding to our nine month old grandson’s urgent demands for breakfast at 6am.

But this morning as I get back to work on various exciting projects I feel rested and ready to go. And how do I know this is not an illusion? Well the data from my smartphone and smartwatch tell me so. I wear an Apple Watch and carry an iPhone all year round, using them to monitor my health, remind me to take my Parkinson’s medication on time and nudge me to exercise more. But on holiday I take greater notice of what they are telling me, with beneficial effects.

My Apple Watch sets me three exercise targets a day - I need to stand for at least a minute each hour for at least 12 hours, do 30 minutes exercise a day and burn through 750 kilocalories, my move goal. Hitting my first two targets is relatively easy but I rarely achieve that 750 kcals these days - it was a lot easier before I gave up running.

Hitting my exercise targets four times in the first week of my holiday

But over the two weeks away I hit all three targets eight times, compared to just twice during the previous fortnight and my step count was just below 10,000, about 1,000 up on my usual daily average. It must have been partly thanks to my regular forty minute walk along the coastal path, down to the beach and back up the steep steps to our house, which left me wheezing at the beginning of the holiday, just breathing a little deeply by the end.

But much more striking was the impact on my sleep. I’ve written several times here about my sleep problems, a symptom of my Parkinson’s which makes it hard for me to get more than four hours a night. Using the cognitive behavioural therapy app Sleepio helped for a while but then I slipped back into bad habits.

What I have found is that when you get a proper record of your sleep it is often not as bad as you think. But for me that means charging up my Apple Watch before I go to bed so that I can wear it through the night and on holiday I remembered to do that.

The results were really impressive. The chart above for a seven day period in the middle of our holiday shows me averaging 5 hours and 42 minutes sleep per night. The last night is a bad one, typical of many at home, with a long period awake between 1 and 2 am, but there are several where I sleep for more than six hours.

So what is going on? First, I think the very act of measuring sleep may make one focus on sleeping better. But more important, I put into practice the key lesson Sleepio taught me - only to go to bed when you are ready to sleep, make sure the bedroom is dark, and don’t read or look at your phone in bed.

My wife went to bed early while I sat and read in the living-room and by the time I crept in around 10.45pm she was asleep and I didn’t want to wake her by switching on a light. I still woke early - around 5am most morning - but felt refreshed enough to get some writing done before the grandchildren woke up.

The other healthy thing about the holiday was the chance to get some reading done - one key advantage of beaches with poor connectivity is that you cannot be distracted by your phone. Amongst the books I enjoyed was Isabel Hardman’s history of the NHS Fighting for Life.

It looks back over the seventy five year history of the health service through twelve major conflicts, from Nye Bevan’s battles with the BMA (which has been remarkably consistent in its opposition to any health reforms) to the struggle against Covid-19. Hardman is admirably clear sighted, a supporter of the NHS but frustrated with the short-termism of politicians, clinicians and management, and with simplistic campaigners, whether they want the whole shebang to be handed to the private sector or claim that any commercial involvement puts the NHS on the path to privatisation.

Plenty of food for thought then as I return to writing about tech and health. Oh, and launching my memoir Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC. And getting on with the next series of Movers and Shakers, the hit podcast about living with Parkinson’s. And last but not least, looking after our Romanian rescue dog Sophie. She’s made great strides while we’ve been away and she has been looked after by our brilliant dog behaviourist Simon Wooler. But now, Sophie, refreshed by our holiday, it is time to get down to some serious work.

Sophie, ready to get down to work.