Deep breaths help

It's Friday. I am exhausted from the workweek.

I've been practising taking deep breaths while my eyes are closed, which helps me unwind. It calms me. The problem these days is that I am working at such a pace that I tense up, which seems to trigger panic attack symptoms.

I need to take some time to break. I'm horrible at it.

Thursday was much better, except when two people pinged me on our work instant messaging app. The disruptions and their inability to read annoyed me. It triggered my stress for a brief period. I did more deep breaths and I was fine afterwards.

As for working from home, my workplace has extended this period till the first week of July. I am taking a week of vacation then. It's much needed. I had planned to vacation somewhere. Instead, my plans have changed and I'll be doing a staycation instead.

I do need a break from this hectic pace at work, which I am looking forward to enjoying.

Being contacted by my manager while on vacation... really?

My manager is in worry mode, as my guy had predicted.

I received a long e-mail message from my boss, asking me to prepare a list of who, out of my three students, will be handling a number of tasks while I am away.

I dislike when my manager gets in this mode. He only asks this task from me. It does not happen to anyone else on the team.

The kicker is this last request:

In case of emergency, how to contact you with a minimum (not maximum) 24-hour response time.

What? I am on vacation. There is a reason why I am on vacation. I am not doing work.

I don't think that the mandatory course that we all took about work-life balance has properly register in his head. As someone who has worked from home for years, I am pretty good at distinguishing between doing work and then stopping to focus on my life.

How would you handle such a request? I am inclined to say that I am on vacation. I need to de-stress and recharge. Being contacted by my manager on vacation is not ideal. I should not be checking work e-mail or picking up work calls.

Last September, I took a Friday off as a vacation day. A contractor had quit after three days. My manager sent me two e-mails about this contractor's departure and then left me a voice message on my home phone. To me, this situation is not an emergency that warrants contacting me at home. I foresee a repeat, but amplified in a negative way.