Congratulations to the many of you who have made it to the Christmas holidays.

For many, today is the last day of work or school — until 8 January!

Disconnect for your physical and mental health:

• If your work email is connected to your personal phone or personal wearable, disconnect, disable, or at least disable the push notifications. Set an out-of-office reply advising colleagues when you will be back, and advising that while you are away you will not have access to email.

• If you have a work phone, and your contract does not require you to be “on-call” while on holidays – turn in off and put it away until 8 January.

• Use the “mute” function on WhatsApp to stop notifications from unnecessary WhatsApp groups (work group, school groups) for up to 1 week at a time.

• If you have a job that requires you to “dip in and out” during the holidays, clearly set a boundary. Set a time to “dip in” — and strictly stick to that time to “dip out” again. Set an automatic reply that lets colleagues know that they should not expect an immediate response.

• For teens, this might be a good time to do some digital detox’ing. Set and enforce some screen time limits at the start of Christmas break. There are many mental health reasons for that, including that some children and teens need a break from social pressures of school. Body image, pressures to “fit in” (posting the right content or comment) or even frank bullying from school can follow a child or teen home through the holidays through their phone or device.

• For more, check out Setting Boundaries

#HealthyHolidays is a virtual advent calendar focusing on ways to look after your health this holiday season.