by: Donna Wright 

edited and approved by Stephen C. Rose, PhD

Get Packing, Vacations May Improve Longevity

Stop wasting your vacation days on oil changes, dentist appointments, and household admin. A vacation, in theory, should entail recovery from the stresses of everyday life. The evidence suggests that recovery is not some fluffy luxury item. It is part of how human beings keep from becoming brittle, exhausted, and chronically stressed [1,2].

That does not mean every beach trip adds years to your life. Biology is rarely that obliging. But chronic job strain is linked with a higher risk of coronary artery disease, and people who never seem to step away from work are not exactly running an experiment in graceful nervous-system management [2]. More intriguingly, long-term observational data suggest that people who take vacations more regularly may have better long-term health outcomes, including lower mortality risk in some groups [3]. That is association, not proof of cause and effect, but it is enough to make unused vacation days look less noble and more shortsighted.

Consider the arithmetic. You work for decades. Stress manifests in the form of late emails, meetings that should have been memos, and homework. A proper vacation should disrupt that pattern. Sometimes the interruption is brief. Sometimes it fades. But even temporary relief matters when the alternative is uninterrupted strain [1,5].

Vacation Is More Than Just a Travel Opportunity

Taking a vacation does not have to mean boarding a plane and pretending you have become the sort of person who says hidden gem unironically. The newer research suggests that vacations improve well-being, but location is not the whole story. In the 2025 meta-analysis of 32 studies, vacation had a meaningful positive effect on employee well-being, and location was less important than factors such as psychological detachment from work and what people actually did during the break [1]. In other words, your nervous system may not care whether you are in Barcelona or in your backyard hammock if, in both places, you have stopped working.

That matters, for lots of people staycation is the only option. It does not matter if you are home or in the Bahamas necessarily, the key is to break the stressful patterns that define your everyday life.  Therefore, a few days at home spent reading, gardening, painting the guest room, taking long walks, or simply not hearing the ping of incoming email can still count as real recovery. The common feature is not geography. It is a temporary break from the machinery of obligation.

Reduce Your Stress Levels

Time away from work tends to improve well-being and reduce exhaustion and health complaints, at least in the short term [1,5]. Some of that benefit may fade after people return to work, which is inconvenient but also very adult. Still, a temporary reduction in tension is not meaningless. If you routinely work under strain, then regular periods of recovery are better than waiting until your brain feels like an overheated laptop.

It is reasonable to say that vacations may help lower stress burden. It is not reasonable to claim that a long weekend instantly erases the health effects of years of overwork. Evidence supports a recovery effect, not magic. But that recovery effect is real enough to matter, particularly when it is repeated over time [1,5].

And there is a larger point. Work-related stress is linked to increased risk of cardiovascular events. [2]. Vacation doesn’t replace blood pressure treatment, exercise, or sleep, but periodic reprieves from chronic stress make those stresses a little less chronic.

Vacations Can Get You Moving

A great many jobs ask the body to do something absurd for long stretches: sit still under fluorescent lighting, stare at a screen, and pretend this is normal. Other jobs reverse the problem and demand hours of standing, lifting, or repetitive effort. Either way, the body can start to feel as though it has been subcontracted out to your employer.

Vacations often change that pattern. In a 2023 cohort study using wearable tracking data, adults slept longer, sat less, and increased both light and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity during vacations [4]. The changes were not dramatic, but the pattern was favorable: more sleep, less sedentary time, more movement [4].

This is why vacations often bring an immediate wave of physiologic relief.  You make you way through new territories eliminating all the cues that normally set you off.  You don’t have to be away to break the patterns of stress that normally haunt you. You can create room for recreational activities and be right at home- just not glued to the same chair for the whole day.

Vacations Help Mental Well-Being and Happier Thinking

Mental well-being is another place where the evidence is encouraging, though it still pays to keep the claims honest. Vacations generally improve well-being, and psychological detachment from work appears especially helpful [1]. Earlier research also found improvements in health and well-being during vacation, even if some of the gains shrink after work resumes [5]. So yes, stepping away can lighten the mind. No, it does not automatically cure anxiety, depression, grief, burnout, or every other burden a person may be carrying.

What vacations often do provide is a change in mental weather. You get novelty, relief from routine, and a break from the small repetitive frictions that dominate working life. Sometimes the best part starts before the trip itself. Research on anticipation suggests that people often experience future positive events more vividly than they remember past ones [8]. That does not prove that buying travel-size shampoo is a psychological breakthrough. But it helps explain why planning a break can feel buoying before the suitcase is even zipped.

Vacations May Help With Burnout, Energy, and Work Performance

Burnout is best understood as a work-related phenomenon tied to chronic workplace stress, not as simple tiredness or laziness [6]. That matters, because it means a vacation is not a complete cure if the person returns to the same impossible workload, the same lack of control, and the same organizational chaos. Still, recovery time can help interrupt the slide toward exhaustion.

The evidence supports a careful middle position. Vacations can improve well-being and reduce exhaustion in the short term [1,5]. Burnout itself is associated with a range of physical, psychological, and occupational consequences in prospective research [6]. So stepping away from work may be useful, but it is not a substitute for changing the working conditions that helped create the problem in the first place.

That said, many people do come back from time off feeling more rested, clearer, and more capable of concentrating. Sometimes you simply regain the ability to answer an email without briefly imagining life as a goat farmer. Recovery has value even when it is not miraculous.

Vacations Help Strengthen Relationships

One of the least gimmicky arguments for vacation is that it can create the kind of time people are usually starving for: unhurried time with other human beings. Meals are slower. Conversations wander. Somebody tells the same family story again and everyone still laughs.

That is not just sentimental. Strong social relationships are associated with better survival in large meta-analytic data [7]. A vacation is obviously not a guaranteed bonding miracle, but time away can give families, couples, and friends a chance to reconnect without the usual invasion of deadlines and errands.

Even the planning can help. Choosing a destination, talking through what sounds fun, and building a shared countdown can shift attention away from the daily grind and toward something communal and enjoyable [8].

Vacations Are Not One Size Fits All

A good vacation is not defined by price, distance, or passport stamps. It is defined by whether it gives you some combination of rest, pleasure, movement, detachment, novelty, and connection. For one person that is hiking in the mountains. For another it is a few quiet days at home with books, naps, and absolutely no conference calls. For a family, it may be a nearby road trip. For somebody else, it may be solo travel, a rented cabin, or a staycation with museums and long lunches.

The best available evidence supports that flexible view. Vacation location appears less important than recovery experience and activity patterns [1]. So if international travel is not in the budget, that does not disqualify the break. The goal is not prestige travel. The goal is to stop living as though every day should be optimized for output.

Good News: A Real Break Still Counts

So should you stop skipping your vacation days to prove you are devoted? Probably yes. The evidence does not support claiming that vacations guarantee a longer life. But it does support something more sober and more believable: vacations improve well-being, can reduce exhaustion and health complaints in the short term, are linked with healthier movement and sleep patterns during the break, and may be associated with better long-term outcomes when practiced regularly over the years [1,3,4,5].

That is enough to make time off look less like indulgence and more like maintenance. A well-used vacation does not solve everything, but it may help you come back steadier, better rested, and a little more human. In a culture that often treats depletion as proof of virtue, that is not trivial. It is a decent argument for finally putting in the time-off request.

References

1. Grant, R.S.; Buchanan, B.E.; Shockley, K.M.I need a vacation: A meta-analysis of vacation and employee well-being. J. Appl. Psychol. 2025, 110, 887-905. 

2. Kivimaki, M.; Nyberg, S.T.; Batty, G.D.; et al.Job strain as a risk factor for coronary heart disease: A collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data. Lancet 2012, 380, 1491-1497. 

3. Gump, B.B.; Matthews, K.A. Are vacations good for your health? The 9-year mortality experience after the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial. Psychosom. Med. 2000, 62, 608-612. 

4. Ferguson, T.; Curtis, R.; Fraysse, F.; et al. How do 24-h movement behaviours change during and after vacation? A cohort study. Int. J. Behav. Nutr. Phys. Act. 2023, 20, 24. 

5. de Bloom, J.; Kompier, M.; Geurts, S.; de Weerth, C.; Taris, T.; Sonnentag, S. Do we recover from vacation? Meta-analysis of vacation effects on health and well-being. J. Occup. Health 2009, 51, 13-25. 

6. Salvagioni, D.A.J.; Melanda, F.N.; Mesas, A.E.; Gonzalez, A.D.; Gabani, F.L.; Andrade, S.M. Physical, psychological and occupational consequences of job burnout: A systematic review of prospective studies. PLoS One 2017, 12, e0185781.

7. Holt-Lunstad, J.; Smith, T.B.; Layton, J.B. Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Med. 2010, 7, e1000316. 

8. Van Boven, L.; Ashworth, L.Looking forward, looking back: Anticipation is more evocative than retrospection. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 2007, 136, 289-300.