By Leslie Nemo, Discover, August 11, 2021
Vacations are about more than dips into the pool or long naps (though those are nice). The time away from work and possibly spent with loved ones is good for our physical and mental health, as study after study shows.
Sure, researchers can’t account for how every vacation detail might change how people feel when they clock back into work, says Brooks Gump, a public health researcher at Syracuse University. “The quality of the vacation, the length of the vacation, where they go, who they go with, the relationship with the people they go with, all of those are variables,” he says. But the benefits of time off are clear, as are some workplace qualities that will likely dampen what people get out of their time away.
Time Off For Your Brain and Body
When researchers find evidence that vacations improve the quality of people’s lives, they often investigate “well-being,” or people’s emotions and energy levels. For example, in one study assessing how a weeklong winter vacationchanged people’s lives, the researchers asked about rest — how well participants slept the night before, how much energy or fatigue they felt they had — and emotions like their mood, how tense they felt, and how satisfied they were with how the day went. Generally, vacations made people feel less fatigued and more energized, improved their moods and left them more satisfied with their days.
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