Does Vacation Enable Recuperation? Changes in Well-being Associated with Time Away from Work

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to study the change of well-being associated with vacation and the effect of vacation related variables on these changes. Fifty-three employees (16 women, 37 men) of a medium sized aluminium hardware manufacturer in Austria participated. Measures were taken 10 days before and 3 days after vacation. A small follow-up group at 5 weeks post-vacation was included. Three days after vacation, physical complaints, the quality of sleep and mood had improved as compared to before vacation. Average life satisfaction did not change during vacation. Five weeks after vacation subjects still reported less physical complaints than before vacation. The experienced recuperation during vacation explained 56% of the variance regarding the change of well-being. Moderating variables of recuperation were the amount of personally available time and vacation satisfaction. Furthermore, the number of stressful days at home were associated negatively, while the number of non-stressful days at home and the number of days away from home correlated moderately positively with recuperation. The study indicates that vacation may improve well-being on a short term basis.

Recovery as an explanatory mechanism in the relation between acute stress reactions and chronic health impairment

“…However, surprisingly few studies have investigated the potentially recovering impact of vacation. Insofar as evidence is available, it shows that immediately after vacation, recovery indicators (eg, fatigue, sleep quality, health complaints) had improved when compared with the levels before vacation but that the gains from vacations faded within a couple of weeks after work was resumed (54)(55)(56)(57). The scarce respite research addressing the impact of specific vacation activities reveals findings that are similar to the pattern of results emerging for activities during shorter periods of respite from work.…”

Do We Recover from Vacation? Meta‐analysis of Vacation Effects on Health and Well‐being

“…The first 3 authors of the present article studied the remaining 11 papers and excluded 4 more papers. In 2 cases, papers were written by the same authors [12][13][14][15] , based on the same sample with the second paper not offering extra information for our research purposes. Therefore the second paper was excluded in both cases 13,15) .…”

“…Attrition from the pre-vacation to the first post-vacation measurement varied between 5% 20) and 59% 12) . The loss of participants from the prevacation to the post-vacation 2 measure varied between 5% 20) and 86% 12) . Sex, age and occupation: The distributions of sex, age and occupation were diverse in the reviewed studies.…”

Happiness Through Vacationing: Just a Temporary Boost or Long-Term Benefits?

“…A number of pre-test/post-test design studies have found higher levels of happiness (Gilbert and Abdullah 2004;) and other positive effects, such as decreased levels of stress and generally better health, after a holiday trip (Strauss-Blasche et al 2000;Westman and Eden 1997;Westman and Etzion 2001), although these effects fade out rather quickly (De Bloom et al 2009). …”