Why you feel extra tired after a few days of vacation
This time was different. I had damn well not done my meditation every morning for half a year for nothing, right? And indeed, I smoothly entered the vacation and yet suddenly found myself crying disproportionately hard halfway through because I bumped my head. It was the fatigue. How is it that we are extra tired after a few days of vacation?
I'm not talking about being sick here, even though that happens to a lot of people too. Then you have the classic leisure disease. You work yourself to the bone, push a little harder for take-off so you don't leave your colleagues with your troubles, and collapse as soon as you sink into a beach chair. Extra bitter this year, because people tend to avoid you these days if you're sniffing over your Moscow Mule.
That extreme fatigue is a mix of factors. It takes at least a week to log out of the rat race of your daily routine. To be precise, your vacation should last at least eight days otherwise it’s totally pointless. Great then, with your long weekend away.
Besides leisure disease, acclimatizing is also a magic word for your vacation. It takes your mind and body some time to catch their breath, which is why the fatigue can only come out after a few days. My little breakdown happened after an hour of doing nothing and sitting out of the wind in the sun on a chair in a garden, so this is quite in line with the whole acclimatization process. One person needs just a bit more sun hours and cocktails than another for the vacation feeling to kick in. This has everything to do with a set of biochemical substances in the brain. Sometimes you literally have to detox from action hormones.
How do you do that? Don’t cram that last work week full of deadlines, plan few to no appointments in the last days, and ease into vacation. Still get up at your usual time and go for a nice walk instead of immediately lounging by the pool. It gives you a slightly calmer transition from work to leisure.
Oh, and you might return to work full of fresh energy after your vacation, but holding onto a vacation feeling lasts shorter than you think. By the way, acclimatizing works the other way around too: don’t dive straight back into your work and social life after a vacation. The longer you take to readjust at home, the longer your vacation feeling lasts.
