Does going on vacation stress you out? You are not alone. I have a number of patients who have difficulty winding down. As one patient explained, “The more I try not to think about work, the more I think about work.” Another patient actually dreads downtime: “I miss the high energy of being at the office.” A third patient rejects the notion of being told what to do: “I told my wife, I cannot be told to relax on command.”

Downtime can be a challenge. It’s less about being a workaholic and more about the need to have your mind occupied all the time, whether it’s listening to the news while showering or a podcast on the way to work or jogging, watching tv before bed or playing CandyCrush in line at the salad bar. Every free moment is filled. And those with high-powered jobs aren’t the only ones who suffer from this. Children often don’t know what to do when they have nothing to do.

But the benefits of alone time abound. Studies show that solitude is crucial for the development of the self. As highlighted in a study entitled, Solitude: An Exploration of Benefits of Being Alone, solitude is associated with freedom, creativity, intimacy, and spirituality.

Spending time alone means growing spiritually, discovering your identity without outside distractions, having the freedom to do what you want without needing to cater to other people’s wants and thriving creatively.

Meditation and other relaxation techniques are useful ways to make downtime more tolerable and also productive. By gaining control over one’s thoughts, the little annoyances like traffic jams and waiting rooms become less stressful and the big questions become less daunting.

These days I spend a lot of time talking to my patients about how they spend their days. I prescribe at least 15 minutes a day, every day, of doing NOTHING. As a result, their mind-set about free time has shifted. Instead of thinking of downtime as a source of anxiety, they now think of it as a privilege.

Best of all, they look forward to vacations.

This article first appeared on The Wall Street Journal

Beach balls and betrayal. A steamy romance with the tennis instructor. They sound like cheesy romance novel titles and bad late night tv movies. And yet, in a 20-year survey about health, relationships and sex, 21.5% of the participants admitted to cheating. While gender, class, salary and education had no bearing on infidelity, the most influential factor was the time of year. June, July and August are infidelity’s high season, a fact the researchers attribute to more travel in the warmer months. And perhaps rising temperatures and revealing clothing contribute to temptation.

While there is no magic formula to prevent cheating, there are strategies for what experts call, “relationship maintenance” — a mixture of common sense and science:

Openness

Talk. Share your feelings and encourage your partner to the same. Communication and honesty are vital.

Assurances

Let your partner know you’re right there with him or her, committed and engaged. Put down your phone, carve out time for just the two of you and be present.

Shared tasks

Cook dinner, find a creative house project, get outside for some yard work, or walk the dog together. This is a partnership, after all.

Kindness

Being kind, giving compliments, doing something nice — making a cup of coffee, sending a random love note or text, or giving a foot rub — telegraphs emotion powerfully.

Shared social network

A friend of yours is a friend of mine. Being in a relationship means being part of each other’s lives and that includes friends and family.

Treat everyday as an opportunity to show your partner you are still in love. It takes kindness, optimism, generosity and effort. That tennis instructor won’t seem so intriguing anymore. 

If you were planning on eating a steak tonight and washing it down with a soda, think again. I am not a fan of soda—even diet—and this new study only fuels my lifelong dislike. Researchers have found that having a sugar-sweetened drink with a high-protein meal causes the body to store more fat. The combination decreases metabolic efficiency and can lead to weight gain. 

Worse, the sugar-and-protein combination sparks cravings for other unhealthy food. Lead researcher Dr. Shanon Casperson noted: 

“This combination also increased study subjects’ desire to eat savory and salty foods for four hours after eating.”

This may explain why you inhaled four S’mores and two bags of potato chips after dinner at the bonfire last week. For those who love grilled steak and barbecued chicken, skip the soda.