What Vacation Is Better for Our Health – Longer or Shorter?

Vacation is a necessary part of our lifestyle; it improves our sense of well-being and affects our health in a good way. It is also an inseparable component of our productivity and creativity. Even though psychologists point up the benefits of vacation, they claim that not every vacation has all these benefits; sometimes, vacation provides us with many positive feelings and experiences, but they simply do not last. But, what makes a difference? How can we organize our vacation in order to gain most of its benefits? And, what vacation is better for our health – one long or two-three short vacations? In answering these questions, we should have in minds our unique needs, interests, habits, and way of life. We are all unique, and to find the most suitable vacation for us, we have to understand our needs and know ourselves well. The following excerpts from the articles “The Secret to Memorable Vacations: Keep ‘Em Short and End ‘Em Sweet” and “How to Get More Vacation Time” respectively help us to explore further what vacation is better for our health – longer or shorter.

Excerpt 1:

Keep it short and sweet — and repeat. The implication of the above insights is profound. Most of us do not have financial resources to make a vacation both as long as we’d prefer and as intense as we’d like. We generally have to trade off one for the other. So, to maximize your enjoyment, it’s best to trade time for intensity. Two weeks in Hanalei, Hawaii, would be awesome. But if you have to sacrifice dinner at your favorite restaurant, scuba lessons or a helicopter flight in order to afford to stay the full two weeks, you might reconsider. In fact, even if you can afford that fortnight to the fullest extent, there’s an argument to be made for splitting those two weeks into a pair of separate trips, each with its own “peak-end” combo of highest high and memorable coda. In the fullness of time you’ll have more positive — and more memorable — memories to bring on a smile when you reminisce.

Excerpt 2:

The average vacation is now a long weekend. Pretty soon you’ll be able to take your vacation on your lunch break. Micro-cations don’t cut it for your life or health. Vacations can cure burnout, the last stage of chronic stress, but research shows it takes two weeks for that recovery process to occur (1). To get the recuperative benefits of a vacation, you need time and, believe it or not, there are ways you can get it with the right mindset and strategies.
Your vacation is your best chance each year to live your life as freely and fully as possible. When you skip a vacation, you skip out on life. That time is never coming back again. Handing back vacation time is handing back the best times of your life. If your company has a vacation policy, you’re entitled to it by law.
The dirty little secret is that people who don’t take vacations get laid off like everyone else. I spoke to a woman at a hi-tech firm in California who had four weeks coming to her because of her long tenure there, but never took more than a couple long weekends a year. She got laid off after 25 years, and now she’s asking, “Where did my life go?”

According to experts, duration is not a primary factor when estimating whether vacation was successful or not. They found out that the quality of a vacation depends on positive emotions we have experienced during our stay. For some, this could mean a lot of socialization and spending time with friends and relatives. For others, it could be enjoyed in highly excited activities and learning a new skill, such as scuba diving. And for one number of people, spiritual content can bring a lot of worth of their time spent away from home. In any case, whether we enjoy in family’s and other closed relationships, hedonism, spirituality, beautiful sightseeing, learning about new culture and mentality, or all of that, we should follow our authentic interests and follow our passion. This part or parts of the year give a lot of quality and fulfillment in our lives. Maybe in answering the question “What type of vacation is good for us?” we should ask ourselves: “What makes me alive?”. Because whatever we do that inspires us deeply, keeps us alive, and fills our lives with excitement guarantees that our vacation is the most effective one.