Why Your Vacations Don’t Work
Before you take your next vacation consider this:
Post Vacation Depression is real. I’ve experienced it myself. The pile of work I couldn’t sift through before leaving is even bigger now. If it’s wintertime, the aversion to being outdoors, particularly if I’ve traveled somewhere warm, is even more distinct. The labor of cooking for myself, especially on a weeknight, feels even more burdensome after eating out for all three meals. If I changed time zones, the sleep disturbance isn’t doing much to make me appreciate sleeping in my own bed again. And the list continues..
I love to travel and I believe traveling can elicit “awe”, which is a necessary ingredient to a whole and purposeful life. However, vacations that carry the burden of being “the answer” to our problems, will always fall short. How could they not? A week or several weeks off is not a substitute for a balanced life. Sleeping well for a long weekend doesn’t level out poor sleep cycles on the average night. If consistency and predictability are the anti-anxiety agents so many people (including Steve Jobs and myself) believe them to be, how could a vacation whose sole purpose is to break the norm, be of more benefit than harm? This is where I introduce the analogy of “backdraft”. Backdraft is when there is a deprivation of oxygen and then suddenly a small amount is introduced causing an explosion; much like taking a vacation amid burnout.
So how do we make vacation “worth it”? I recommend living more in balance in your daily life. If you make the space for play and recreation in your daily or even weekly life, you will put less pressure on vacation or even “the weekend” to provide this for you. If you master your insomnia in your everyday life, you will not be dependent on a long weekend or time “off” to catch you up on sleep. If you connect with your spouse and children daily, the value of these familial ties will not rest on the amount of fun generated on vacation. You get the idea.
So! Start small. Start with one thing, maybe sleep, maybe the quality of your meals and process of digestion, maybe the fun and recreation in your life. Pick one and start working on it. The more you integrate it the more powerful and effective it will be and you will start to notice less backdraft or post-vacation depression. Don’t be afraid to ask for help with this, whether from a dietician, sleep specialist, coach or general practitioner. You matter. Your daily life matters far more than an epic vacation.