Anxious about money this summer? You need a vacation more than ever
Recently, the State Department altered its estimate of how many passports it will be issuing in 2009; in December, fiscal year 2009 seemed poised to grant 17 million passports. Now, it’ll be lucky to hit 12 million. A recent poll conducted by Allstate found that this year, nearly half of all Americans are reducing their travel plans.
In hard times, the first thing to go is actually the most important: a vacation. Though traveling has long been seen as a frivolous venture ripe with classist guilt, it’s been proven to decrease stress levels, act as a buffer against illness, increase sense of self-efficacy, and change perspectives.
A 2007 study from the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (”The Recovery Experience Questionnaire”) found that of the four classifications that the researchers used to quantify recovery from burn-out—psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery, and control—psychological detachment from work “might be the most relevant recovery experience.”
Why is getting away from work so important? Because, as science has proven since 1986, as anecdotes have shown since the advent of the family getaway, and as stated in the very definition, a vacation forces us to spend lots of time with non-work areas of our life. Other life domains such as family and leisure life gain salience; if iPhones can be turned off momentarily, we begin to realize that our cubicles and nameplates may not be everything. And many of the small joys or transcendent experiences of a vacation often revolve around small things experienced anew: walks in nature, lots of unstressed time to play, leisurely card games, going to sleep without setting the alarm. “A Vacation from Work,” by John W. Lounsbury and Linda L. Hoopes (download here), puts it best: “Life satisfaction… showed a significant increase after a vacation.”
