Let’s face it: AI briefly took over my life for a moment.

Everywhere you look, people are stressing about its impact on higher education. It forces you to completely disconnect, totally rewrites your daily routine, and promises a world where your every human need is automatically anticipated.

Some people are terrified of losing control to AI. But me? After years of scholarly research and dissertation defense, a group of my fellow doctoral grads and I surrendered completely. If experts are going to automatically optimize our lounge chair placement, process our high-level requests and stream an endless supply of poolside margaritas directly into our hands… well, who are we to fight the future?

That’s right. All-Inclusive (AI).

While the rest of academia is arguing over chatbots, a few newly minted doctors and I spent a few days letting a resort in Mexico do all the thinking for us. No writing, no data analysis and absolutely zero cognitive bandwidth required.

When you completely plug into paradise, you find four adult women reading books while lounging on beach chairs in a rotating combination of poolside to oceanside and back again. No kids. No partners. Just us doing whatever we wanted.

Thriving happily in this world for four days at the Wyndham Grand Cancun, we embraced our new reality in typical mid-life fashion—starting with the fact that we scored a great deal for the resort stay and airfare through Costco Travel. If anything is going to get me to trade in my Sam’s Club membership for Costco, it’s these travel perks. The package even included seamless transportation to and from the resort. And if you’ve ever traveled through the Cancun airport, you know the absolute triumph of walking right past the gauntlet of folks aggressively asking if you need a ride or want to buy a timeshare. Costco made this trip so beautifully easy for our group.

Cancun is a magical place where made-to-order breakfast quesadillas stuffed with ham and chorizo are an acceptable daily baseline. It’s a place where you can wrap a slice of avocado in bacon, and your friends don’t judge you—they just think, “Yeah, that’s the best idea ever.” Where mimosas suddenly appear at your table, waiting for your return from the buffet because the servers (I’m talking about you, Gabriella!) anticipate your every need. It is a truly special state of being.

Early mornings became their own sacred ritual. A fellow early-riser friend (Leslie) and I made it a point to wake up early enough to watch the sunrise on a couple of occasions, sitting quietly as the sun slowly peeked over the horizon, hiding behind big, puffy clouds while the sky transitioned from dark blue into brilliant shades of pink and gold over the ocean. Afterward, we practiced yoga right there on the beach, moving with the sound of the crashing waves. Once we stretched, she would head off for a morning run, while I stayed behind on the sand to meditate, soaking in the stillness until the resort coffee shop opened. From there, I’d grab a foamy latte and sit peacefully by the pool, sipping it in the morning quiet until the rest of the group woke up and was ready for breakfast.

Most of our daylight hours were dictated by the rhythm of the tide. I’ll always remember the taste of the salty ocean on my lips after a refreshing wade, skimming out past the seaweed but staying well clear of the crashing currents pushing and pulling along the shoreline. I wanted to keep my bathing suit firmly on, not have it ripped from my body by the powerful surf. Instead, I found a sweet spot on a sandbar less than 15 feet from the shore, enjoying the safety of just standing there—with not a fish in sight (at least as far as I could see).

Lying out to dry afterward was pure bliss. There is nothing quite like the feel of the warm sun cooled by a gentle breeze, the crusty white sand between your toes, and the thick smell of sunscreen coating Midwestern skin before it has even seen the first real rays of summer. I read my book in my high-rise bikini for hours with absolutely nowhere else to go. Trips with girlfriends in their 40s are truly a sweet spot for me, a boost in my confidence like I’ve never seen (and I’m only 37).

From my comfy lounge chair under a thatched tiki umbrella, sipping margaritas with a salted rim, I watched giant pelicans dive-bomb into the ocean, only to pop back up and nonchalantly surf the waves. I could never tell if they actually caught any fish, but they would just ride the crests until they gracefully took off into the sky again. Granted, seaweed had collected along the shore during our visit, accumulating into wide, slightly stinky piles. But once you look past it and brave the journey into the ocean, you forget all about the trek it took to get there. Talk about a life lesson…

Of course, we did manage to break our relaxation curfew at least once. We treated ourselves to a delicious steakhouse dinner, complete with a bottle of wine that gave us a collective heart attack when the bill arrived at $1,600—before our post-doc brains quickly did the currency conversion and realized it was in pesos. Don’t worry, our jefa (boss) Leslie took care of it.

We lingered at the table to finish the wine, which the bartender apparently took as a green light to send over shot after shot after shot. Honestly, nothing is quite as flattering as a bartender sending over rounds of custom drinks he thinks you’ll like without you even asking. We finally had to flee before we completely lost the ability to walk back to our rooms. But don’t worry, our mature instincts kicked right back in: we chugged giant bottles of water and popped a couple of preventative ibuprofens before finally falling asleep like the responsible adults we are.

Because by day two, our mornings and evenings had taken on a distinctly mature rhythm. I don’t know if it was a day in the closer-to-the-equator sun or the extravagant amount of rich food we consumed, but our bodies slowed down.

At breakfast, the table looked less like a vacation hotspot and more like a chemistry lab, as we casually emptied packets of water-soluble fiber into our water glasses while comparing notes on our daily supplement lineups—the ultimate sign that we’ve officially arrived at a new stage of adulthood.

And the real magic happened at night. Forget the midnight beach parties; we were tucked into bed by 9 p.m. each evening, falling asleep to the soothing sound of a portable fan within minutes. This was the slumber of moms who didn’t have to worry about anything. Of course, the sleep wasn’t entirely uninterrupted, as we seamlessly took turns waking up to use the bathroom throughout the night in a perfectly choreographed, middle-aged relay race.

It was the ultimate academic detox. We might be doctors now, but when it comes to the real world, we still need to ask, “Where do I look?” every single time someone takes a group photo. We spent a lot of this trip laughing about Mexican pigeons (mourning doves), talking to iguanas and lizards (“hi, buddy”), and making new friends because we’re Midwest nice (ya, no). This was the first girls’ trip for all of us, and it’s safe to say we’re ready for our next one!