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Vacations are necessary to gain health. They help us recover energy, empty the body and mind of tension, thus reducing the possibility of suffering a stress crisis, the syndrome identified as burnout.

What the research tells us

Research finds that with the holidays, our general mood improves and we are more productive when we return. Already the very planning of the vacations produces a feeling of well-being that it is estimated can cover up to eight weeks before the disconnection arrives.

Vacations put distance between us and our worries, they help to relativize. They also facilitate our experience of the present moment, since we are in a different space and time, in a parenthesis, and we know that this will happen. Taking advantage of vacations to learn a new skill helps reduce stress. The awareness of having to experience them automatically places us in the now. Disconnecting the mobile phone as much as possible will help us to experience these sensations more fully.

Also, being aware of what to expect and what each of you expect from the place and time of vacation is important when traveling with others. As a family, in a group or as a couple, plans will always need to be agreed upon to ensure the priorities of each person.

Guidelines to ensure that the return does not erase the well-being that the holidays have brought us

-The first is not to return the night before going back to work. A few hours to make the mental and physical transit and prepare things, will help to start over better.

-Especially, if you had strenuous physical activities during your last day of vacation, such as long excursions in the mountains that have exhausted us, it will be convenient to have enough time to feel rest and recover.

-We can prolong the satisfaction experienced through memories, such as photographs, flavors and smells, articles of the place where we have been, even clothes or tools that we have acquired. They will accompany us home or even to our work space. Integrating it into our day-to-day life contributes to prolonging and feeling even greater satisfaction from the vacations lived.

-If we have fully recharged our emotional batteries and our minds during the disconnection of vacations, we can take advantage of this cleaner energy to think about the changes we want to make in our professional career, social life, at home… The places we visit on vacation and the people with whom we talk can give us ideas, different visions about how people can function, earn a living, face situations… We can learn.

-Identifying what, during the holidays, has made us feel really good and trying to replicate it after our return becomes another benefit of the holidays.

A healthy vacation does not imply, however, travel expenses

Being able to carry out any activity that gives us pleasure, such as eating different foods, or contacting people to whom we usually do not spend time, wherever it may be, without the pressure of a schedule or pending work, escape and relax, or learn something. Small getaways, for a day or a few days, help to put perspective, air concerns and project ourselves into a new here and now.

Dr. Capdevila offers accompaniment and psychotherapy in stressful or conflictive situations. https://www.conniecapdevila.com/