"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings," says Zuzu Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. But that incessant chiming you hear might also be the ping of emails bouncing back with out-of-office notifications as the year -- and our motivation to work -- grinds to a halt. Welcome to Twixmas, aka Dead Week, or Feral Week: that stretch between Christmas and New Year's Eve when we get the urge to take off and tune out, and our outstanding projects, deadlines and other responsibilities become 2025 You's problem. Whether they've actually gone on vacation or have just mentally checked out, many people see it as a time to (hopefully) rest and do less.

Celeste Headlee is one of them. For starters, her birthday falls during that week, so she has no qualms about taking time off and not answering emails. "I think most people in my life know that there's no point in trying to get me to do anything," the journalist and speaker tells Yahoo Life.

As the author of Do Nothing: How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing and Underliving, Headlee is also an advocate for anything that encourages people to prioritize their personal well-being over productivity. "I would be OK with the entire world just being on vacation with out-of-office notices," she says of Twixmas.

Peggy Loo, founding director of the Manhattan Therapy Collective and a psychologist whose specialties include perfectionism and burnout, also sees the end-of-year wind-down as a positive. "Living in New York City, where sometimes how busy we are becomes a sign of personal accomplishment or value, I appreciate the collective slowing-down that happens around the holidays," she tells Yahoo Life. "It can be hard to slow down if everyone else around you is still going a mile a minute. If you see that everyone pauses, you can really let yourself sink into the experience of slowing down in a different way."

Ahead, experts explain why we all deserve (and need!) a break -- and why not taking time out can put our physical and mental health at risk. Here's how to do a little less, even if you don't have the luxury of booking a vacation.

Headlee points out that there health consequences inherent in a culture that prides itself on pushing ourselves. "The connection between overwork and all kinds of life-threatening illnesses is direct," she says, citing 2021 research from the World Health Organization (WHO) linking long working hours to early death from stroke and heart disease. "This idea that human beings can both be well and be working all the time is an idea that needs to stop," Headlee adds.

Loo notes that there's a mental cost too. "It's important to have off-time not only to prevent burnout, but it also helps us enrich our lives and sense of identity or worth beyond 'what we do,'" the therapist says. "Certainly, productivity can be impactful and good. But if it's the only way we know how to feel good about ourselves, it's likely to lead to overworking and exhaustion."

Other factors to consider? According to Headlee, working longer doesn't necessarily mean you're getting more done. "A lot of times we'll sit there at work and we'll stay longer, thinking, 'OK, I'm gonna get a head start on the next day's work.' But then how many times do you come in the next day and be like, 'OK, well, I get to leave early?'" she notes. Instead, we once again bow to the pressure to perform and stay productive.

The lucky ones among us will already have vacation time booked and our out-of-office notifications ready to go. And if you have an outstanding personal time off allowance that won't roll over into 2025, try to use it up now. So what if you have no other plans besides catching up on Landman, napping all day or exchanging your least favorite gifts?

Headlee acknowledges that being able to say, "I'm not going to work this week" is a privilege. How can someone who has to be on the clock (and not, say, sipping tropical cocktails on a cruise ship or catching a Monday morning screening of Wicked) squeeze in some self-care as the year comes to an end?

"Even if you are scheduled to work that week, you can make sure that you're working just the hours you're paid for and [then] you go home and relax," Headlee advises. And when she says "relax," she means relax. "Don't see that as a time to suddenly catch up on projects at home or suddenly realize, 'Oh, I can make new curtains.' 'Oh, I should, you know, organize my spices,' or whatever it may be. Just rest," she emphasizes. "Go into the new year rested."

"We tend to equate rest with time off and not working, or we assume it has to look like meditation and naps," Loo adds. "Expanding your definition of rest beyond the absence of work to whatever feels restorative in the moment can help. So it could be a stretch break from your desk or a silly text exchange with a friend in the midst of a stressful day with kids. Whatever fills you -- even in a small way, physically or emotionally -- counts."

Depending on what their jobs entail, some people will have more leeway than others when it comes to taking it easy during the holidays. It's good to set expectations with your supervisors and see if there are any tasks that can wait until the New Year. If you're still expected to give 100%, you can at least try to squeeze meaningful breaks into your day (more about that below). Beyond that, follow Headlee's advice and focus on making the most of your free time by turning down any commitments or chores that only feel like more work.

Let's face it: It shouldn't take a full year for us to get an actual break. If you're entitled to time off throughout the year, use it, and set better boundaries -- like carrying a "dumb phone" so you're not answering work calls and emails during your off hours, perhaps? -- so that your work life doesn't spill into your personal one.

Here's what else Headlee recommends:

Headlee is heartened by a growing acceptance of giving ourselves more breaks -- "especially among younger generations who are less willing to tolerate the expectation that we be on call for our jobs and that we essentially belong to our employers," she notes. Some companies have adopted four-day workweeks, or switch off their email during non-business hours. It's still a far cry from life before the Industrial Revolution -- when weddings and holidays merited days-long celebrations -- but they're the sort of positive signs that give her hope.

"This whole thing of trying to keep the holidays and celebrations as short as possible, that's an extremely new development in human history," she says. "And what that tells me is that we changed it not that long ago -- which means we can change it back."