Fourteen days of vacation can be enough to lower your IQ by 20 points

Now I get it

Sometimes my brain just doesn't work that flawlessly anymore. You get this from: “Yeah, you know, that one blonde queen from Game of Thrones and then that big guy she was married to and then died.” This was really a conversation I had on the terrace with a bottle of white wine and we both nodded in full agreement because we knew exactly which man we meant. But a name? Nowhere to be found in the corner of my (normally functioning) memory. Not in that of my friend V either, by the way. And it happens to me more often. After a week off my brain starts up again, stuttering and sputtering. That May asks something and I keep staring at her with a delay because I can't come up with the answer. Or that I just can't remember the name of that handsome guy or that the series I meant on Netflix is Dynasty. And normally I can say it a hundred times, you understand.

I know that your memory makes a distinction between important and not so much, just because you can't remember it all. That makes me a bit calmer again, because when I just typed ‘how come I can't remember that name’ into Google, they immediately started talking about age-related forgetfulness and that it starts at thirty. So I do get a bit panicked. I try to keep things in my brain tight and trained, just like I make an effort on the outside.

But when I've been on vacation, it seems to be extra bad. That's right, says a German professor from Friedrich-Alexander-University. Research shows that going on vacation, especially to that sunny destination with an abundance of caipirinhas and lounging around, helps ruin your intelligence and working memory capacity. It’s just the way it is. When I stare at May, nothing happens up there. May, just so you know.

So you can do something about it. It can be trained and I’ll tell you how. Move more (ha, I’m already doing that), keep your life interesting (doing my best, doing my best), meditate more and play a game on the computer every now and then, that ensures that your attention doesn't go in all directions. You know what you need to do when you come back from lazy land.

Image: Instagram

Source: The Brainworks