Why Do You Want To Go Home On Vacation?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

"I'll work for another week - and at sea!" We look forward to our vacation, but then suddenly we find ourselves counting down the days until we return home. Familiar feeling? There can be many reasons for this: from a bad place to stay on vacation to a feeling of boredom and emptiness. In everyday life, we are actively engaged in work. However, what happens to us when we leave the usual role of a leader, manager or housewife? Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl proposed the concept of "weekend neurosis" - as a special depression that many experience on weekends. When the daily routine does not protect from the feeling of an existential vacuum (meaninglessness of life), there comes a realization of this. Research confirms that 78% of people are sad on weekends and 47% experience real suffering. This can be applied to vacations as well. Vacation is a long weekend.

A 2003 survey of business leaders by Management Recruiters International found that 47% of respondents did not take all of their vacation during the year, and 35% of employees also did not take full vacation.

It turns out to be a paradox. The rest we are waiting for turns into misery. As in the cartoon about the golden antelope and the greedy rajah. You wish for more and more gold, and then it suddenly turns into unnecessary shards. What is the reason?

We think that while resting we are missing some opportunity. Especially when browsing social media. Someone went to Egypt or the Maldives, and I went to the Black Sea. Someone reaches the goal, makes money, and I am inactive. This kind of internal dialogue can be haunted.

Inflated vacation expectations. I may think that something supernatural is going to happen. But nothing happens. It's simple. It has its own routine, its own difficulties.

Loss of control. This can be caused by the lack of a clear schedule, an algorithm of actions. Especially in people with high anxiety who want to control everything. On vacation, they control children, wife, waiter. It's exhausting.

Vacation is a test of happiness. Am I happy in another role? Being not a boss, but just one of the sunbathers on the beach. This is the ability of our psyche to be flexible, switch, adapt, be open to new things.

The expectation that everything will collapse without me at work. I can afford rest, but with very limited time.

What to do with all this?

You need to learn how to rest. If you don’t know how to relax on vacation, then most likely you don’t know how to relax during your work schedule. Recent studies by neuroscientists show that such people are prone to burnout and frequent mistakes.

Try to understand the reason for wanting to return home. What is it? What is difficult to cope with on vacation?

Understand why you need rest. Remember the movie "Hector's Journeys in Search of Happiness?" The psychiatrist worked in his small office and felt that he lacked happiness.

Understand what is bothering you. Maybe an unfulfilled case? Or an unfinished conversation? Try to finish whatever you need to do before going on vacation.

Relaxation is a sign of mental health. Psychologist Michelle Newman discusses another common effect she calls the "Contrast Avoidance Model." People who are prone to anxiety often do not like to relax, because after rest, their anxiety seems especially unbearable to them. Often they deliberately do not allow themselves to calm down and rest properly. “It turns out that some of us make ourselves feel uncomfortable all the time,” Newman says. - We may feel that if we are under constant stress, it can protect us when something actually happens. In fact, it does not protect from anything."

Learn to live in the present. People start asking themselves, “Am I having fun enough? Am I resting well? But, of course, if you constantly think about it, all the rest goes down the drain. Social media makes the situation even worse: looking at other people's photos and posts, it is very easy to start experiencing FOMO, or “loss of profit syndrome”. The feeling that you are missing some important or interesting event.

In conclusion, it is worth saying that if you are faced with the difficulty of taking a break and have found one of the above reasons, this is great. Congratulations! You have done an important job. Reconsider your values, start living differently. If it is difficult, then consult a specialist. Have a nice holiday!