When you’re on vacation, it feels like you could stay there forever.
But it turns out there is a specific number of days to take off from work if you’re looking to get the most out of your holiday.
Researchers at Finland’s University of Tampere found that, ideally, any vacation should be between 7 to 11 days long – and it’s all because of work-related stress.
Some people are able to fully switch off before they even board the plane, while others can’t help but worry about their responsibilities back home.
Whichever category you fit in to, it turns out it has a big impact on your trip.
The researchers looked at people’s work-related stress levels over the course of their holiday, finding that those going away for 7 to 11 days experiencing the most restful vacations.
This is because that just over a week is enough time to totally switch off and come back feeling refreshed. Anything more than 11 days, and people began to worry about the amount of tasks piling up.
On the other hand, a weekend getaway isn’t enough time to totally switch off from ‘work mode’.
The researchers said:
“Vacations represent the longest period of temporary absence from work and may, therefore, constitute a more powerful respite opportunity than shorter rest intervals
“Employees are often unable to recover sufficiently during short respites from work due to increasingly permeable boundaries between work and home domains, long working hours, working overtime and prolonged physiological activation as a result of preoccupation with work.
“Our results showed that health and wellness rapidly increase after the start of the holiday and seemed to peak on the eighth vacation day.”
