Vacations & Your Mental Health

I haven’t written anything for a while now and this is my first post for over a month. I tried to be offline as much as I can and enjoy some vacation time with my family. Some of you may know from my introduction post that I have a little baby boy at home. He is seven months old now and sadly he is not keen on sleeping long hours at night (or day). That is why we are both awake every two hours at night. Thus my vacation was mainly focused on getting some sleep in the afternoons. And this is the time when I use to read your posts on Steemit and write something myself. Unfortunately, I can’t do all of them – sleep, read and write. I don’t have these superpowers. Yet!

So, this is what my vacation looked like – sleeping an hour more every day. Yey, what a party! Please, don’t feel sorry for me! We also had a lot of friends visiting us. And we traveled a bit. But I don't remember very much of it - I was sleeping :)

I feel great now – battery fully recharged!

As a trained psychologist I often observe my own emotional world so I noticed that I was feeling somehow guilty for not writing anything on Steemit. I have been here for a relatively short period of time but I feel already committed to the Steemit society and especially to the SteemSTEM community. I have already met so many interesting people here! And all of them have been so kind to me! I was feeling like a fake Steemian or something…

I suppose that a lot of people feel uncomfortable when they have a vacation. That is why I decided to check out what science says about vacations.

Are they important? It isn’t a big deal if we skip them, right?

It turned out that vacations are actually important. Just as friends and family are.

If you don’t have any -> life gets miserable.

It looks like business and governments in Europe are way more vacation-friendly than in other parts of the world like China, Canada, Mexico or the US (you can see some charts here). I know what you are thinking – Europeans are just too lazy! Yes, I agree with you – especially those who live in Southern Europe with their siestas, their wine, and oh! their sea (no offense, I live in a lazy country, too! :P).
But life is unfair as we all know. So this European laziness doesn’t result in an ineffective economy. Exactly the opposite – EU GDP is one of the world’s highest GDPs (if you like statistics, you can check some here).

However, I am not even close to an expert in the world's economy and (relax!) I am not going to analyze EU productivity. I am only a psychologist who knows very well that conditions like burn-out, anxiety, depression, panic disorder are often associated with too many working hours and no days off.

Mental health is more important than your job. (Lee, K. 2018)

Not convinced? I will put it straight: no mental health - no job, nor joy. Something more: happy rested people work better! Look at Europe! Still not convinced?! Let’s see what science says about the health benefits of having a vacation.

We all have heard about stress, right? It is the new black :) Everyone is stressed out about everything. Sometimes I wonder if our ancestors who faced death every single day were so stressed as we are? Actually, I have an answer. Most of us are not endangered by a hunting lion during their workday as our ancestor were but still, an e-mail could make your pulse go up as if you are face to face with that hungry lion.

No, this is not a lion. This is an e-mail.

We live quite a different life compared to the first homo-sapiens but we still have the same bodies. Therefore our bodies respond to stress in exactly the same way they did thousands of years ago – fight, flight or … die?! So an e-mail is not the new black. It is the new lion. It can definitely eat you alive! How many e-mails do you have daily? Oh, now you see - the whole pride is coming after you!

An e-mail box waiting for you.

Stress is associated with a long list of physical illnesses and if it doesn’t cause some of them, it definitely makes them worse. When you are stressed it is more likely to have high blood pressure, poor digestion, and persistent headaches. You are more likely to get an infection, suffer an accident, experience poor memory, exhaustion, depression, burn-out, anxiety, and sleeplessness. You will probably be irritated which can result in relationships problems. You can read more about the subject here and here.

Chronic stress endangers your well-being and taking a vacation is one of the ways to deal with it. Westman and Etzion, 2001 examined the impact on job stress and vacation on a strain on 87 blue-collar employees in Israel. The participant completed questionnaires before and after vacation and again four weeks later. The result showed a decline in burn-out symptoms immediately after the vacation and a return to the prevacation levels four weeks later. The same pattern was observed in regard to absenteeism meaning that the participant attended work more right after their vacation but then occasional absence occurred.

A regular day at work.

Now you will probably wonder what is the point of taking a vacation if you will be as stressed as usual four weeks later? Yes, the heavy workload could exhaust you again shortly after your return to work. However, there are other benefits to having a few days off. Fritz and Sonnentag(2006) discovered that people felt more satisfied with their lives after having a vacation. They experienced a decrease in health complaints and exhaustion. Furthermore, the participants put less effort to fulfill their daily work chores.

No surprises here, right – if you are well-rested, you will be more productive at work. This is great for your job and your career, isn't it? So great news - vacations help you fulfill your potential!

Of course, being off work is not enough to feel relaxed. It would be so easier if it was, wouldn’t it? But, one must try to calm his or her mind in order to rest and regain resources. If you engage in negative thinking about work during your time off, you will probably feel more exhausted when you come back. Non-work hassles during a vacation also contribute to feeling overwhelmed and exhausted instead of relaxed (Fritz and Sonnentag, (2006)).

Not a surprise, hum? So in a conclusion, if you want to deal with the stress, you should avoid arguing with your spouse who booked this crappy hotel. And it is also strongly recommended to cease feeling sorry for yourself for having the world’s most awful job and leave all this reflection for later.

Another trick to reduce your stress levels is to have an active vacation. For example, you could play tennis, ski or hike. In this way, it is less likely to engage in thinking about your job and the tasks that are waiting for you.

Why am I bringing up this issue?

Obviously, most people like having days off work. Surprisingly, if you work for yourself as many people on Steemit try to do it takes much more effort to take a vacation. My husband and I work for ourselves for some time now and it turns out that it is much more difficult to let it all go and just leave for a few days. You don’t see it coming, but all of the sudden you not only skip vacations because you have a project to work on, but you start skipping your weekends. And if you try to be offline, you can’t stop imagining the emergency emails you have in your mailbox. It is really easy to start thinking: “It is not that important to go for a few days in the mountain now, I will do it later when I finish this thing”. But “later” never comes.

Ironically, it takes a lot of discipline to relax and rest.

And it is tremendously important to do so! Stress could do a lot of damage to your physical and mental health and one should learn to cope with it on an everyday basis. Vacations are fine but they can’t do all the work. Their effect fades off in a few weeks (Westman and Etzion).
I am saying this because I have experienced it personally. For the last few years, my husband and I were like school kids. We took long summer vacations, but we worked on most of the weekends during the rest of the year. Don’t do that! It is exhausting! So now, we are trying to create a brand new work routine in an attempt to cope with the stress better and have more time with our little one.

So, what about you? Am I the only one who feels guilty for having a vacation?

Created by @insight-out, Valeria Sim.
All rights reserved.

References:
de Bloom, J., et al., Effects of vacation from work on health and well-being: Lots of fun, quickly gone. Work & Stress, 2010. 24(2): p. 196-216.
Strauss-Blasche, G., C. Ekmekcioglu, and W. Marktl, Moderating effects of vacation on reactions to work and domestic stress. Leisure Sciences, 2002. 24(2): p. 237-249.
Westman, M. and D. Etzion, The impact of vacation and job stress on burnout and absenteeism. Psychology & Health, 2001. 16(5): p. 595-606.
Fritz, C. and S. Sonnentag, Recovery, well-being, and performance-related outcomes: the role of workload and vacation experiences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2006. 91(4): p. 936.
Susan Krauss Whitbourne, 2010, The importance of vacations to our physical and mental health, Psychology Today
Kristen Lee Ed.D., LICSW, 2018, Your Mental Health Is More Important Than Your Job, Psychology Today
https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress.aspx
https://www.expedia.com/p/info-other/vacation_deprivation.htm
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-symptoms/art-20050987

Images (Under CC0 Creative Commons):

https://pixabay.com/en/dog-sleeping-resting-rest-canine-848390/
https://pixabay.com/en/lion-predator-dangerous-mane-3040797/
https://pixabay.com/en/amimals-lions-africa-predator-1132745/
https://pixabay.com/en/sea-sand-coast-beach-seashells-1351559/
https://pixabay.com/en/luggage-vacations-travel-summer-1149289/