Vacation Sabotage: Don’t Let It Happen to You!

The New York Times:

I’M heading into another vacation, and I’m nervous. I don’t want to kill again.

I pretty much did in my last break, this past March. Not an act of premeditation so much as passion. I got so jacked up. Seven days in Hawaii. It was going to be the best vacation I’d ever had.

And then it started.

Somehow my wife and I had failed to anticipate the effects of a time-zone change on our two toddlers. Then there was the rain. I took refuge in my phone, checking the weather, reading the news. I wondered why I wasn’t relaxed. The pool was too cold. How much were we paying for this? I checked my phone to see if anyone missed me on Facebook. Nope.

I had hoped to return home at peace. Instead I was exhausted, defeated and irritable.

What had I done?

With another break looming, I went seeking professional help. Is there a way to get the most out of a vacation? Or at least not to ruin it? Can one avoid the seven-day trap: three days impatient to be relaxed already, two days actually being relaxed, and then two final days of dread before going back to work?

And can any of this be supported by actual science?

Read the whole story: The New York Times