Unfair: the holiday feeling takes forever to arrive, but it's gone just like that

Everything is perfect. The palm trees rustle as they should, the cocktail tastes as it should, the temperature is perfectly on point, and meanwhile, I'm bouncing over the beach because I just can't calm down. Welcome to the first days of my vacation. Do you recognize this? Conversely, it's also unfair, by the way. You come back completely zen from vacation, and you lose that feeling in a nanosecond. How does that happen, actually?

Apparently, it keeps the vacationer busy, as endless research has been done on how long it takes to get into the vacation mood. It takes a full seven (!) days to completely disconnect from home, hearth, and work. This often happens because you go on vacation a bit extra stressed. Just a little more time to write a five-page handover, just one more meeting on the agenda, just a few more overtime hours to finish that assignment. And I haven't even mentioned reading your email on vacation, as that can be deadly in the long run. Your mind needs time to let everything go, and that takes quite a while. An ideal vacation is therefore always longer than a week, because only then do you really enter vacation mode.

Conversely, it's even more unfair. You finally have those vacation vibes down and come home like a sort of zen Buddha, but that feeling evaporates as soon as you step over the threshold. Of course, we still try to hold on to it a bit. We promise not to check our phones in the evening and have breakfast outside on weekends, but it doesn't quite work out. It's actually quite logical, because on vacation you have fewer obligations and much more freedom. However, according to Dr. Nawijn from NHTV in Breda, it is possible to hold on to that vacation feeling. His research shows that you become happiest from that specific relaxation. According to him, this can also happen at home if you keep trying a little. The trick is to approach life a bit more loosely. Only do what you really have to do and then plan something vacation-like. I'm saving this tip for when I head home later. Let's see if that zen-Buddha state can stick a bit.