Vacation (after-) effects on employee health and well-being, and the role of vacation activities, experiences and sleep

Abstract

Most vacations seem to have strong, but rather short-lived effects on health and well-being (H&W). However, the recovery-potential of relatively long vacations and the underlying processes have been disregarded. Therefore, our study focused on vacations longer than 14 days and on the psychological processes associated with such a long respite from work. In the present study, we investigated (1) how health and well-being (H&W) develop during and after a long summer vacation, (2) whether changes in H&W during and after vacation relate to vacation activities and experiences and (3) whether changes in H&W during and after vacation relate to sleep. Fifty-four employees reported their H&W before, three or four times during and five times after vacation. Vacations lasted 23 days on average. Information on vacation experiences, work-related activities and sleep was collected during vacation. Vacation activities were assessed immediately after vacation. H&W increased quickly during vacation, peaked on the eighth vacation day and had rapidly returned to baseline level within the first week of work resumption. Vacation duration and most vacation activities were only weakly associated with H&W changes during and after vacation. Engagement in passive activities, savoring, pleasure derived from activities, relaxation, control and sleep showed strong relations with improved H&W during and to a lesser degree after vacation. In conclusion, H&W improved during long summer vacations, but this positive effect was short-lived. Vacation experiences, especially pleasure, relaxation, savoring and control, seem to be especially important for the strength and persistence of vacation (after-) effects.

Health Improvement and Recovery Experiences During Vacation of School Teachers: The Benefit of Physical Activity

“…Duration of vacation was linked to control but was not associated with health improvement. Findings are in line with reviews showing recovery on a regular basis seems vital to protect employees' health (Semmer and Kottwitz 2011), and frequent respites are supposed to be more beneficial than the duration of a single vacation (de Bloom et al 2013). In contrast to expectations, experiences of mastery, detachment, relaxation, and control during vacation did not partially mediate the link between doing sports during Fig .…”

“…Relaxation is characterized by low activation and positive affect (Sonnentag and Fritz 2007). de Bloom et al (2013) reported relaxation during vacation to be significantly related to health/well-being during as well as after vacation. Many sports activities need attention and cognitive resources are spent to sports activity.…”

“…Thus, the application of different assessment methods would be favourable to prevent common method variance and achieve better triangulation (de Bloom et al 2013;Semmer et al 2004).…”

Fatigue experiences in competitive soccer: development during matches and the impact of general performance capacity

“…Cronbach's alpha was .77 in our study. Psychological fitness was assessed using a 6-item scale of affective well-being, which was adapted from previous studies and showed to possess a good reliability [23,24]. Items included feeling 'irritated' (reversed), 'happy', 'stressed' (reversed item), 'relaxed', 'enthusiastic', and 'satisfied'.…”

Tourism, meditation, sustainability

“…This assumption is supported by peer-reviewed literature. The length of the fadeout period of positive vacation effects ranges from a few days (De Bloom et al, 2013), a few weeks (Nawjin et al, 2010), to a month (Kühnel & Sonnentag, 2011). Based on these findings and considering the average length and frequency of holidays taken by Hungarians it is questionable that traditional tourism products can significantly improve health and quality of life.…”