Clockflux

Holidays that actually rest you, and why the glow fades so fast

Mental health4 min readBy

You get back from a holiday feeling rested and full of good intentions. By the following Friday it's as if you never left. If that sounds familiar, you're not imagining it, and the research has some useful advice on what to do about it.

This is the third post in our series on work and mental health, after where work ends and the 11 hours between working days. Those two were about rest between working days. This one is about rest between working weeks.

Holidays work, but not for long

In a 2010 study published in Work & Stress, Jessica de Bloom and colleagues followed 96 Dutch workers before, during and after a winter sports holiday. While they were away, people's health, mood, energy, tension and satisfaction all improved. But in the first week back at work, most of them were more or less back where they started. The title of the paper sums it up: lots of fun, quickly gone.

A 2023 meta-analysis in European Psychologist by Franziska Speth, Johannes Wendsche and Jürgen Wegge combined 13 studies with more than 1,400 people. The average holiday in them lasted 11 days. The authors found that:

  • holidays reliably improve well-being: better mood, less stress and less exhaustion
  • a week after people got back, the difference from before the holiday was no longer significant
  • longer holidays didn't bring bigger benefits

Based on this, they suggest taking regular short breaks through the year rather than saving everything for one long trip.

What makes time off restful

Some time off is more restful than others. Psychologists Sabine Sonnentag and Charlotte Fritz describe four experiences that help people recover from work, whether over an evening, a weekend or two weeks away:

  1. Detachment: not thinking about work. Checking the inbox "just once" on holiday keeps work on your mind for the rest of the day.
  2. Relaxation: things that take little effort and calm you down, like a walk, a book or a long lunch.
  3. Mastery: something new that stretches you, like learning to ski or cooking a dish you've never made. It takes effort, but it gives your mind something to do besides work.
  4. Control: deciding for yourself how to spend your time. A trip someone else planned for you, or a holiday taken up with family obligations, gives you less of this.

So lying on a beach isn't the only way to recover. A long weekend where you switch off, rest a bit, try something new and do things at your own pace can do you more good than two weeks of answering email by the pool.

Making the effect last longer

You can't stop the effect wearing off, but you can get more out of it:

  1. Spread your days out. If the benefit fades after about a week, a long weekend every couple of months keeps topping it up. One fortnight in August leaves a long stretch with nothing.
  2. Ease back in. Leave a day at home before you go back to work, and keep your first day back light, with no big meetings. A full inbox and a deadline on day one use up the rest fast.
  3. Tidy up before you go. Write down where each open task stands, set an out-of-office message and ask someone to cover for you. The less you leave hanging, the easier it is to stop thinking about work.
  4. Switch work off. Take work email off your phone for the week, or at least turn off its notifications.
  5. Book the next one. Having a break in the calendar gives you something to look forward to, and you're less likely to reach December with days left over.

Don't let your days run out

That last point matters at this time of year. A lot of leave years end on 31 December, and in many jobs unused holiday doesn't carry over. The EU Working Time Directive guarantees at least four weeks of paid annual leave and doesn't allow it to be paid out instead, except when you leave a job. The point is that you take it.

There are two months of the year left, so now is a good time to check how many days you have and when you could take them.

Where Clockflux fits in

The Holiday tab in Clockflux shows how much leave you've earned, used and still have, and counts days you've booked for later in the year as planned. If your plans would take you over your allowance, it warns you while there's still time to change them.

With Clockflux Pro, the holiday planner lets you lay out the days you have left over the rest of the year, see how that affects your year-end balance and book them all at once. If your employer allows it, you can also turn on carryover so that unused days move into next year's balance.

Started your job partway through the year? The holiday allowance calculator works out your prorated allowance and how much you've built up so far.

If you find you can't rest even when you're away from work, or you start dreading going back long before the holiday is over, take that seriously. Talk to your doctor, a mental health professional or an employee assistance programme if your employer offers one.