Why the Vacation Feeling Fades So Fast Once You're Home

It's the first Monday back. The suitcase is still half unpacked in the hallway, there's sand in a shoe somewhere, and by Wednesday the trip already feels like it happened to someone else.

If the good feeling slipped away almost as soon as you walked in the door, you didn't do vacation wrong. Researchers who tracked working people before, during and after time off found that the lift usually fades within the first week back at work. In one study, the clearest happiness difference showed up before the trip, not after it.

This episode looks at what a vacation actually gives you: something to look forward to, something new, time outside and time that isn't run by the usual demands. Most ordinary weeks have almost none of these, which is why one trip can't carry the other fifty-one weeks.

The good news is that you don't have to wait a whole year to get some of that feeling back. Smaller doses of the same ingredients can fit inside a regular week.


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7 Good Minutes is presented by OCEANSCAPE and published by The Extraordinary Network.