Transcript
Speaker: on zencastr Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abbasida. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
Speaker: It is December 26th, 2025, the Feast of St. Stephen, or what most people call Boxing Day. As we are approaching the end of the first year of publishing Rest and Recreation every Friday at 7am UK time, it feels like we have reached something of a landmark.
Speaker: And an appropriate time to reflect on why we started publishing Rest and Recreation and the journey to where we are now. The last 12 months have been an amazing experience.
Speaker: There has been a lot of learning about how to produce a podcast. There has also been an immense increase in our knowledge about all things work-life balance and rest and recreation.
Speaker: I am hugely grateful to the increasing number of people who have listened. Your confidence in rest and recreation, your likes, reviews, subscriptions and comments are all greatly appreciated.
Speaker: Thank you. I am also grateful to the wide range of expert guests that Rest and Recreation has attracted. Almost 60 people from all over the world and across time zones, as well as some from here in Yorkshire, have appeared on Rest and Recreation.
Speaker: Whether they come from near or far, I know that Rest and Recreation has been blessed because of the generous way in which they have shared their knowledge and experience.
Speaker: That sharing is the foundation on which rest and recreation has been built. If you are wondering where I find these interesting people, the answer is most often matchmaker.fm.
Speaker: I must also thank our sponsors who have supported Rest and Recreation. The Ultimate Travel Club, York Test and three, the Mobile Communications Company, have all supported Rest and Recreation from the start.
Speaker: It would not have been possible without their support. Thank you. Rest and Recreation is made on Zencastr, the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make making podcasts so easy.
Speaker: I have benefited from the professionalism and patience of the Zencastr creator support team. Thank you. Lastly, i must thank the Abucida team for their support and constructive feedback.
Speaker: Making Rest and Recreation has been a fascinating voyage of discovery for me and the whole of the Abucida team. Abucida started Rest and Recreation because we were dealing with lots of requests from the employees of our ah HR support clients who wanted to work four-day work weeks, hours that were different to the conventional nine-to-five or work in different locations.
Speaker: When we asked those employees what they would do with the extra leisure time that these working arrangements would give them, the common answer was catch up on chores. We were surprised by the number of people who do not have a hobby or a regular leisure activity.
Speaker: When we asked people why this was, the usual response was that they had never thought about it. So we decided to launch Rest and Recreation to help people discover leisure activities.
Speaker: Good Rest and Recreation is not about doing nothing. Truly valuable Rest and Recreation involves getting our brain and our bodies doing something different to our normal activities.
Speaker: Because as they say, change is as good as a rest. With our HR hat on, we know that people who have hobbies and regular leisure activities are more likely to be happier at work and more productive.
Speaker: This is because of the positive impact a hobby or leisure activity has on mental and physical health. so it makes sound commercial sense for every employer to support their employees to find and participate in a hobby or a regular leisure activity.
Speaker: In 2026, we will be uncovering many more ways to create valuable rest and recreation leisure activities. Our aim is to demonstrate how easy it can be for an employer to support employee wellbeing by encouraging their employees to be active in different ways when they are not at work.
Speaker: We will be creating more content with more focused series so that we can all learn more about different hobbies and leisure activities. Please let us know about the hobbies and leisure activities that you are interested in learning more about.
Speaker: We will strive to secure guests who are experts or have lived experience of those activities and can provide practical solutions and sound guidance. 2026 will be an exciting year for rest and recreation.
Speaker: I look forward to sharing the ongoing voyage of discovery with you. Thank you.
Speaker: Made on Zencastr.
