When the world feels like it is closing in, as you become more sensitive to city smells and private hells, and nothing looks like it is supposed to be and the daily dread becomes wide and deep, and you know you need a change of pace from the treadmill existence of the human race, pack your bags and get out of this place.

Get away from all that has become routine, check your attitude and change the scene, any place that is different, or new, a contrast from what you regularly do.

The psychological, emotional, and physical benefits of time away from your current reality are obvious, and documented. When you are in one place too long, you become set in your ways, growing evermore tired of the work/eat/sleep rigmarole and daily brain drain; only to wake up and do it all again.

Being anywhere, doing the same things day after day, becomes exhausting as you stare at the familiar four walls, crowded streets and shopping malls. As with anything, balance is required, and you need to put in motion the lesser-used parts of the body, mind, and soul with a change in climate or time zone.

Sure, a stay-cation can be nice — time away from the daily grind is always appreciated — but it’s not a holiday, not really. Even with the best intentions of lazing around the pool with a good book or trashy paperback, ignoring the clock by sleeping in or staying up late, time will pass like it is just another date. It’s just hanging around the house. Inevitably you’ll end up doing laundry, thinning out your email inbox, or scraping the residue of last month’s intended salad from the bottom of the neglected crisper.

To break free from the same old, same old, you need to look at things differently. You will feel better about yourself when you create distance between the office cubicle or shop floor and all those people who make the day such a bore. It gets like that, after a while. Admit it.

Pack lightly and get away to another land or city, a place where nobody knows you, and you can bask in anonymity (or the tropical sun), away from the texts and talks of the mobile device, or that boorish neighbor and his bitchy wife (they get like that, after a while, admit it). Hop a plane, or a train; things will seem different, immediately, once away from the cramped comfort of home.

You need to sleep with your pillow facing a new direction, and wake up in unfamiliar beds. You need to open your mind with tours of museums, theatres, or galleries; anything that is different than what you do naturally, or habitually, or just because you have to do it.

Do something for yourself; it doesn’t matter if you fill your days with golf, or schussing down the slopes, or taking in five countries in seven days, but it is important to do what you don’t regularly do, to give the other side of your self a chance to come out and play.

Vacations allow for cultural experiences that will broaden your horizons, and provide opportunities for learning and living, but most of all they promote inner-peace, a deeper sense of well-being, and a greater understanding of who you are.

Holidays put balance back into a life that, by its very nature, gets off kilter. It’s rewarding, it is necessary, to break free from the chronic stress and anxiety, away from the never-ending cycles of insomnia and irritability.

Get out of your uncomfortable zone and off the familiar path. Gain a new perspective on life by seeing how others survive and thrive. Step away from the normal, from convenient technology, take a departure from the foods you usually eat and find places where the temperature, the language, the music, and the currency is quite different.

If a change is as good as a rest, then a change can be restful, as well. It is all about renewal.

A week away from what you normally do allows a chance to return home with a fresh mindset, and a little more insight into why you are where you are, or why you are the way you are.

Arriving home can also make you realize just how good you really have it.