The Vacation Fade-Out Effect
Time off lifts health and mood, and the lift is generally gone in the first week back at work. The researchers' best guesses for slowing the fade all point at the return.
The vacation fade-out effect is how fast the rest wears off once you're back. For most people, it's gone within the first week.
Jessica de Bloom and colleagues (2010) followed 96 Dutch workers through a winter sports trip of about nine days. On the trip, most of their measures improved, including mood, tension and energy. In the first week back, they had generally returned to where they started. The team's 2009 review of earlier studies found the same quick fade.
Vacations still matter for long-term health, the authors stress. Their open question is how to make the relief last, and their guesses all point at the return: the pile of work that waited ("catch-up stress"), coming back midweek with the weekend in sight, a day or two at home before work starts. None of it is tested yet.
The return is also the part a manager controls.
The nudge: When someone on your team books leave, plan their return with them: a Wednesday or Thursday restart, nothing booked before noon on day one, and a colleague's short note on what can wait. It's untested, and nearly free to try.
Source: de Bloom, Geurts, Taris, Sonnentag, de Weerth & Kompier, Effects of vacation from work on health and well-being: Lots of fun, quickly gone, Work & Stress (2010); de Bloom, Kompier, Geurts, de Weerth, Taris & Sonnentag, Do we recover from vacation? Meta-analysis of vacation effects on health and well-being, Journal of Occupational Health (2009)
