Speaking of Psychology - Encore - Why you should take a vacation—and how to get the most out of it, with Jessica de Bloom, PhD, and Sarah Pressman, PhD

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Whether your idea of the perfect vacation involves the beach, exploring a city, or just relaxing at home, you probably look forward to your time off all year. Sarah Pressman, PhD, of the University of California Irvine, and Jessica de Bloom, PhD, of Groningen University in the Netherlands, talk about why taking a break from work is important for physical and mental health, what you can do to make the most of your vacation time, and differences in work and vacation culture around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Speaking of Psychology is taking a summer break, so we're rerunning some of our favorite episodes from the past. Last summer, I talked to psychologist Sarah Pressman and Jessica de Bloom about why you should take vacations and how to make the most of your vacation time.

We hope you enjoy this episode from the archives. Speaking of Psychology, we'll be back with new episodes in late August. Thank you for listening. It's summertime, and perhaps your thoughts. have been drifting to your next vacation. Maybe you're dreaming of sitting on a beach with a cool drink in hand or camping in the mountains, or exploring a new city, or just staying home for a week reading and binge watching TV. Whatever your idea of the perfect vacation, it's probably something that you look forward

to all year. Do vacations actually make people happier in the long run? How do they affect our mental health and well-being? What about our physical health? And are some types of vacations more beneficial than others, and if so, which ones? Is it better to relax, to scurry around seeing new sites and expanding our horizons, or some combination of the two? Just how long do the benefits of vacation last?

Is there anything you can do to make that post-vacation glow last longer? And finally, how do differences in work and vacation culture affect people's mental health and well-being around the world? Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills. We have two guests today. First is Dr. Sarah Pressman, a professor of psychological science and an associate dean at the University of California, Irvine.

Her research focuses on the interplay between stress and psychological well-being and health. She has examined the role that positive emotions and behaviors play in influencing stress and health outcomes, and she's especially interested in understanding exactly how these positive factors get under the skin to influence our well-being. As part of that research, she's studied how vacations and leisure time

affect people's stress levels and their physical health. Our second guest is Dr. Jessica de Blume, a work in organizational psychologist and a professor at the University of Gruningen in the Netherlands. She studies the effects of vacation and leisure time on people's well-being and work performance, as well as how workers are being affected by the vanishing boundaries between work and non-work life today. She is an international scholar who previously spent five years living and working in Finland, and she's interested

in differences in work and vacation culture in different countries and regions. Thank you both for joining me today. So happy to be here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you very much. Great. So what exactly are the mental and physical health benefits of vacation? What have each of you found in your research? And maybe Dr. De Blum, we can start with you. Yeah, I started out from existing research, analyzing, of course, what has been out there already. And two very influential longitudinal studies found, like they investigated large groups of healthy people. They medically examined them for nine. to 20 years in these different studies. And they both showed that not taking annual vacations was significantly associated with a higher risk for morbidity and even mortality due to heart attacks. So not taking holidays entails a health risk, you can say. And in my own research, I have approached this question from a slightly different lens because I followed then people that take a vacation and I followed them before. during and after their holidays and tracked their well-being across that time period.

And also there I found that people's health and well-being, in this case self-reported health and well-being drastically increased right when they go on the holiday. It remains quite high in the middle part of the holiday and then vanishes very quickly or goes back to baseline once they are back at work. So within two weeks, levels of work engagement, burnout and so on. go to baseline levels. Dr. Pressman, does that resonate with you? What is your research found?

Yeah, absolutely. It resonates. And, you know, we've been looking more recently, especially at the cardiovascular outcomes that Dr. de Blum mentioned, you know, really monitoring people's cardiovascular function while they go through vacation, both before and after. And what we really see is that, you know, when we look physiologically at what's happening their body, not just these, like, serious outcomes, but, you know, how is that happening? and we monitor their heart rate or their blood pressure, what we see is that as people start

anticipating their vacation, even the weeks before, you start seeing those benefits. People, their stress is bothering them less. And what that means is that, you know, when they feel these kinds of negative emotions and anxiety and worry, it's not having the same kinds of implications for their body. And we know that that's true for not just, you know, long, serious vacations. I know we're going to get to what kind of vacations help. But even just leave. When we engage in gardening, when we engage in hobbies over the weekend, these things also seem to have the same benefits in reducing our blood pressure, reducing our stress hormones. And these should lead to benefits to our physical health, just like Dr. de Bloom was saying,

you know, it should lead to differences in mortality and longevity and disease outcomes. Well, let's talk for a minute about the different types and lengths of vacations. I want to ask whether the health benefits of staycations where people, don't go anywhere. Are they as robust as those of actual vacations that involve getting away from your home? I think I can really speak to the research that Dr. Presman was already mentioning, that we indeed also see that in our studies coming back, we followed people that had a domestic holiday, so that was four or five days in their home countries, so Netherlands in this case. and we also followed people that just had a regular weekend.

And we could see there very similar patterns that also during weekends, during regular leisure time, people did recover, did report higher health and well-being levels, engaged in activities that they greatly enjoyed. So also there we can see that. We did see a little bit different types of activities because at home you may be more likely to engage in chores or things that are not only enjoyable, like houseworks, domestic work, taking care of young children, family members that can also be exhausting. And that is maybe a bit harder in the home context to deal with that

and also to get this mental detachment from work because our laptop may be potentially with us in the weekends and we may simply open it and start working. So that's the challenge of the staycation, I would say. Yeah, and it's really, I think, a, you know, pros and cons of staying home versus going away because obviously we know that travel is full of so many stressors, right? You know, security at airports, possible illnesses along the way, packing, the cost of it, things going wrong. And so there are so many things that you lose control over when you're traveling, especially to faraway locations that you don't have with a staycation. But just like we heard from Dr. Bloom to Bloom, you know, There are also these consequences of staying home. And so you have to kind of weigh the pros and cons, I think, and think about, you know, I think how long is your vacation going to be? Are you going to be able to kind of get over the travel stress so that you can truly enjoy yourself and relax in the place that you're going to? Because obviously going away has benefits. I mean, you might

experience awe because there'll be novelty, which is a great positive emotion with a lot of benefits to physiology and health. And you might experience obviously more, you know, social bonding, when you're away from your daily life and the grind. And so there are so many benefits to going away. But I think that you have to balance that against the stress and make sure that you're able to really enjoy your vacation if you do go away. Well, speaking of enjoyment, if I could ask another question, what about the people who don't really unplug during vacation, the people who take their phones and their laptops and they basically continue working while they're on vacation? Do they get the same health and well-being

benefits as people who completely unplug? We also asked people that in our study how much time they spent on work-related activities during their holidays. We had phone interviews with them during the holiday. And we did find that quite a share of people did engage some clients with colleagues and so on. But they all said that this was their own choice and they could also decide the amount of time they would spend on it. And in this scenario, then we didn't see the negative effects. And it was on average, I think, half an hour that people spent during the holiday on work-related activities. And then we don't see the negative effects.

What we see from other research or from Sabina Sonantaga and colleagues, for instance, that this mental disengagement from work is really crucial to have that on a regular basis to really recover and get your physiological system to baseline levels and to rewind. Dr. Pressman, are there strategies that people should use in order to actually unplug during vacation? I mean, maybe you really feel like you've got to look at your email, but what can you do to keep it under control? I mean, it's a great question. And I think, you know, it does depend on how you perceive your work, whether or not you should do this, right? Because I think for some people, the unplugging could be more stressful than not unplugging. And, you know, and if you do love your job, and, you know, it's going to be worse for you not to do it.

you know, that could be consequential. But if you really do need the break, because like we heard just now, it is critical for us to actually restore, you know, there are so many things that you can do, right? You can leave your phone at, you know, in your hotel room. Don't bring it with you. You can turn on an away message. There is a great trend that I've seen with people putting on fabulous away messages on email, you know, that really says, you know, I'm not really checking my email. Like, this is not something I'm doing, you know, or, you know, you know, put, blocks on your phone, right? You can block your email. You can put so that maybe you only spend a certain amount of time or certain hours of the day, you're only going to look at it.

And I think, you know, there's great technology, because of the overwhelming, you know, interference of technology right now and the constant distraction we have, companies really have stepped up to create a lot of programs to help us, you know, take a break. And so I think you just have to commit to that seriously and, you know, promise yourself that you will give yourself a true break. Is that kind of a cultural thing? I mean, I know in America, we don't take our vacations. We may be given two weeks of vacation that we just feel we can't possibly take because, oh my God, something is going to happen. I'm going to miss out at work. I'm just not going to get my next promotion. My boss is going to know that I was away for too long. I mean, whatever the guilt factor is.

Is that a particularly American thing? Or Dr. DeBloom, are you seeing that in other cultures as well? I do see it in other cultures as well. I also have worked quite a lot. a lot with Japanese colleagues. There we also see long working hours. There's even a word for dying from overwork. So it's also a serious problem there. And also in Europe, I think I would say it's increasingly common to respond to emails outside regular working hours.

And burnout is becoming like a batch of honor, right? It's like as a sign that you have done your best. And I think that's very problematic. and in itself you can question whether working hours is a good measure of actually performing and doing your best. But that seems to be our only way nowadays to show our ambition or one of the few ways to easily show motivation and ambition. So, yes, I think it's all around the world. You can see it. But yeah, maybe American culture is maybe a little bit more extreme than the average.

European working culture. You talked a little bit about staycations and short respites from your everyday work, but can a vacation be too long? Dr. Pressman, I see you smiling. You have an answer for that one? I really don't know the answer to that. I'm curious if Dr. de Blume does because I haven't seen a study that asked that question. I mean, you know, I can imagine, obviously, if you're a working adult, you know, the stress is going to start increasing the longer that you're away. And, you know, we know that for some people, when they get back to work, it can be worse. You know, like, you know, if the stress and you haven't kept up with things and, you know, there's a million

emails in your inbox that you have to deal with and that there's things that you were supposed to do that you didn't do. That's obviously going to create, you know, it's going to potentially wash out the benefits of the vacation when you get back. And so I think that it could be too long if you're not accounting for those factors. But, you know, if the norm is, and obviously in some cultures, the norm is we take summers off or we take a month off in the summer and that's what everyone is doing. I think that that's going to, you know, potentially prevent that kind of harm at least. But I'm very curious to hear what Dr. DeBloom has to say to see if she knows.

Is there the ideal number of days of vacation? Do we know that? We don't because it's actually really hard to investigate because people tend to to take the amount of holidays that works best for them. And you could think of setting up a research project in which you assign people to certain vacation duration or vacation location, but then you also can really wonder

what kind of people do you attract for these studies. So it would never render very good results, I think. So that makes it very hard to investigate the duration. But overall, we do not see this dose response relationship that you would maybe expect that the longer the holiday, the longer lasting the effects are. So what I think more and more when I look at research on vacations, but also on shorter respites from work, think of breaks, lunch breaks and so on, that I think the regularity and having

a regular break, breakout times, that's maybe much more important than having a long time out. It reminds me also of the holidays in the Nordics, which is also maybe to do with the light, that they tend to have quite long summer holidays. Because when, yeah, enjoy the sun and the sunshine and the light while it lasts, I can totally understand that. But there's always the risk when you do that and you put all eggs in one basket and then maybe this one holiday doesn't turn out as good as you hope because maybe the weather

is really bad or the location is absolutely not what you're expected or you get sick during the holiday, then yeah, you feel very bad about it and also you don't have enough other respites throughout the year. Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at the Home Depot. It's time to fire up summer cookouts with the next grill, four-burner gas grill, on special buy for only $199 and entertain all season with the Hampton Bay West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining set for only $499. This Memorial Day get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price invalid May 14th or May 27th, U.S. only exclusions apply. See Home Depot.com slash price match for details.

There are some companies in the U.S., and perhaps overseas I'm not fully aware of this, but some companies in the U.S. have said you have unlimited vacation as long as you do your job, you can go off for six months and trek in the Himalayas if you want to. Are people doing that? I mean, have you looked at any of this and does it have any impact or are people just still too afraid to take that much time away from their jobs? Yeah, we're actually in the process of doing a research project on unlimited leave policies. And so far, we have written a more conceptual piece on that together with my colleagues.

And our ideas and also what we take from research is that on the, one hand, you have this autonomy and this really nice feeling. And that's also what we learned from the first interviews we had, like, okay, I have the freedom. I don't need to save up days because when needed I can always take off. So this feeling of freedom that really helps people, improves their well-being. But on the other hand, there are social processes that like the one that we just discussed, that there's also a team that may be dependent on your work and that you don't want to leave alone. There are maybe people who are more easily argue and negotiate for their well-being

and to have a longer holiday or to have a holiday during the busy summer season when everybody wants to be off. So there are these processes at the same time. So one process is the unleashing or we call it the, yeah, you really can benefit from it. But then there's also the restricting process of people, like the team being strict and restricting each other potentially. And that may lead to people taking actually less leave than they had previously when it was a fixed amount. And everybody had the same and you have a norm to stick to. What about those people who spend their vacations viewing everything through the camera on their cell phone?

Are they getting the same benefits as people who use their phones or are. other cameras a little more judiciously. Dr. Pressman, any thoughts on that? No, I mean, it's a really interesting question. You know, there have been studies that have used smartphones as a way to savor. And so if you're not familiar with the concept of savoring, it's really being in the moment, really trying to experience something positive and lengthen how long it affects you. And so, you know, typically with savoring, we do that by, you know, meditating on it or just

trying to be in the moment, but there have been studies where they say, oh, well, you should take a picture of it so that you can remember it and, like, recall it and take it. So I think it doesn't have to be a bad thing. But what we also know is that having your phone with you all the time, I mean, it's not just the taking the picture, right? It's the fact that you're going to get notifications and that you might go on social media. And so there's other things that are taking out of the moment besides the photograph, right? And so I actually had an interview recently with someone who was really interested in this phenomenon where some people are turning back the clock and using flip phones. So like the old fashioned, like, you know, from 10 years ago, maybe even longer

than 10 years ago, you know, pre-smartphone kinds of phones for this exact reason, because they want to be in the moment. They want to not be distracted. They don't want to be searching the internet for everything. And so I think, you know, Kim, like you said, I think that for some people it is a problem, that they're unable to be in the moment and really take in the positive experience that they're having if they're distracted by what's going on. And certainly, you know, I do worry, you know, when you see people at a concert and the entire time they're filming, you know, are they really enjoying it as much? But I have mixed feelings about it because I think if you do film it and you're able to keep reliving it over and over again, you're getting a positive emotion boost from that as well. And so I think you have to kind of figure out what's right for you. You know, are you able to still? enjoy it while you're filming it. You know, I wouldn't want to lose out on a precious memory of my five-year-old because I didn't take a video of it, right? You know, so for some of us, it's like we want the ability to relive that over and over. And certainly with vacations, you may want to, you know,

if you see a whale swim by as you're out in the ocean, you know, you might regret not taking a picture of that. And so I wouldn't want people to not document because they're worried of not being in the moment. Yeah, and maybe to add to that this social element is maybe also an important one, that it's also possible then to share your experiences with people that are not with you at the moment, but that enjoy the memory with you the moment. We talked a little bit earlier about how long that after vacation glow lasts. What's a typical time frame once you've come back to your regular life for you to still feel the benefits of, ah, the relaxation, the fact that I had a great time.

and then you get back into the grind. How long does the glow last? Do we know? Yeah, very short, I can tell. So in the studies that we have done, and we looked at domestic holidays, so four or five days, we looked at winter sports holidays of a week on average, and on a long holidays, like three weeks on average. And they all had similar effects in terms of, like,

in the first week after returning home from the holiday, day they were back to how they felt before, which was also good, right, because they are healthy employees and happy with their job. But, yeah, that's about the lasting benefits in terms of health and well-being, right? But I think there are much more effects that we didn't capture that do last. And then I'm thinking, for example, my colleague does research on a couple experiences. and they see that couples do engage more actively with each other and their relationship when they are on holidays.

And those effects, they will persist also after the holiday or the family memories that you create together. There's research on backpackers, like young people who maybe take a really long time and go backpacking through the world. And they say that it really changes their view on themselves, give them new perspectives on the world. this is not something you catch when you ask people about the actual health and well-being at the moment.

Are there strategies for extending that happy feeling to something that you can do when you come home that maybe would extend it, Dr. Pressman? Well, I was going to say one thing that we saw in a recent paper from a few years ago is that there are some people who that benefit does last for a few weeks for, but it's people who, I mean, to put it, colloquially, I think, have a good job. So the people who have a job with high effort, reward imbalance, where they're putting in a lot of effort but not really getting a lot back, those people, it's just like Dr. de Blume was saying, like, those benefits are gone right away. They don't get much of a benefit for long. But the people who don't have those kinds of jobs actually did see a few weeks of well-being benefits, which at least says that there's something there going on with stress and your experience at work. But I mean, as far as thinking

about this from like a broader psychological experience, you know, how do we lengthen our positive experiences? You know, how do we make them last longer? I think a really important thing is, you know, like we were just talking about before, you know, trying to relive these experiences and savor them, you know, not forget this great experience that you had. Sharing it with other people is a great way to savor an experience, you know, show your, I mean, it might be obnoxious for some, but, you know, showing your photos to other people, you know, talking about it, you know, reliving it with the person that you were with so that you get those micro doses of positivity that are going to help reduce the stress that you're experiencing. So I think that's a big part of it is not letting

the vacation go just because you came back, you know, trying to, you know, we know that right now there's a lot of research that's showing the anticipatory benefits of good things, not just in vacation, but anything, a concert, any kind of positive experience. You know, it's not just the concert or the vacation that gives us happiness. It's the weeks leading up to it that really have this you know, fade in anticipatory glow. And so why can't we try to do that on the way out as well, right? Can we try to think back on it positively, you know, try to keep that positive emotion going for as long as possible? Yeah, and maybe I can add to that, the research by my colleague, Dr. Jana Kuno. She looked at this, what she calls the fade-out process of these effects and found

that when people had high work demands after returning home, the effects. fade even quicker and that relaxation in the evening hours after work could buffer and could help to extend the effects. So that would speak to trying to have a slow work start and not, I think what many of us do as we come back from the holiday. There's a pile of work. Our inbox is totally overflowing and we want to get it done within the first day of working and then we make long hours because we feel energized and we feel like, okay, we have the energy to do it. But that actually really wears the effect out very soon. So the trick could be researchers have found that if you start on a Wednesday, for example,

and have like a shorter first working week that could help to slow down this process and to help keep the demands low and the relaxation levels high. How much does the vacation locale matter when it comes to, the effect on people's mental and physical health. Does it matter if people go on a city vacation where they see a lot of museums and, you know, go out to dinner in the theater or whether they go to the mountains or whether they go to the beach or a lake? Does that make a difference in the overall effect on people? I can, I mean, I don't think anyone has really, you know, like we were talking about before,

you can't randomize someone to go to a city versus go to a beach. people are going to pick the things that are good vacations for them. And so I think a lot of that is knowing what's going to restore you, right? Is are you someone who needs culture? Are you someone who the Broadway show is going to bring you the most joy? Or are you someone who just needs the peace and, you know, quiet of vacation by the beach or in the mountains? I will say that there's a huge body of literature on nature as restorative. You know, there's so much work on green spaces and blue spaces and how they not only reduce stress, but, you know, physiologically, they're having changes on us. They re-energize us. People often feel more energized after spending

time outside. You know, lots of things are happening to our bodies. And, you know, psychologically, we're just, you know, calmer, happier when we're in nature. You know, we can really, there's all sorts of great interventions now. You know, you don't obviously have to go on a vacation. to get this. You can just go on an awe walk where you really try to take in everything around you or, you know, just really unplug in the moment. And even that alone can give you like a little micro vacation from that. But that's not to say that, you know, if Disneyland's your thing or Disney World's your thing, that you're not going to get a lot of joy from that and that you're not going to have a wonderful vacation. I think you just have to know what's going to work for you and what you need.

Yeah, maybe I can add to that that we looked at different activities that people engage in. And we didn't find strong links to the effects that people have, probably because exactly what Dr. Presum was explaining, people choose what's good for them. What we could see is that we look also at recovery mechanisms. There's a model that has been developed also by Sabina Sonnetag in her group that has, like, for example, the mental disengagement I was mentioning, the relaxation, also being in control, deciding yourself, how you want to spend your time, or mastery, for example, having a pleasant challenge that you undergo, that that can help to increase the benefits of the holiday and get more out of it, so to say. And that I think that's pretty independent of the place. You could potentially have these experiences in any environment, create those. And some, it's maybe easier than

in others. But yeah. Yeah, and I think one important ingredient, too, is who's with you. You know, when we've done work on leisure activities independently to look at which leisure is most beneficial to your health and your physiology, the social activities seem to give you a little bit more bang for your buck. You know, if you're having meals with other people, if you're engaging in hobbies with other people, that does seem to be beneficial a little bit more, at least in the leisure perspective of doing things by yourself. And this echoes all of the push, you know, from the surgeon general right now, the United States on, you know, the health impact of loneliness and how critical social relationships are to longevity and health. And so I think there's a big part of that

that, you know, vacations give us a time to engage in our relationships in a way that we don't when we're working and we're going through the daily grind. And so I think highlighting, you know, the opportunity to really capitalize on your positive relationships and build them and really connect with people is going to have a big impact as well. What about people who have kids? Is it better to take the kids with you? or leave them with grandma and grandpa. That depends on the kids, I would say. I just remember years of vacationing with my parents

where we'd sit in the backseat of the car screaming at each other the whole time when we were driving up and down the east coast of the U.S. I don't know how my parents did it, but does it have an impact? I mean, I will say anecdotally from, as a parent of a young child, you know, a lot of people who have young children, I think that they don't call vacation

vacations, they call them trips when they're taking their kids with them, right? It's basically babysitting in a different location. And so, I mean, I think it's a really hard question because, you know, when we talk about the relationship piece we were just mentioning, you obviously want the vacation as an opportunity to build your relationship with your child. You know, it's an opportunity to have memories that will last forever that you can go back and savor. You know, these things should build positive emotions and social connections that are good for you, but, you know, parents are also burnt out and exhausted. We had the pandemic years where people had no child care for years. I mean, I think if people have the, I mean, I don't know of research

on this. I will say, you know, this is totally conjecture. But, you know, if you had a place where you wouldn't be stressed leaving your kids, you know, either it's a vacation where there's child care or there's a grandparent who's going to take them off your hands, I mean, I think that all parents deserve a break. And so I think if there's a way to do that in a way that doesn't stress, you out, at least sometimes, that's certainly going to be beneficial from a restoration perspective, to actually have a true break where you're not just babysitting. You mentioned the pandemic. What do we know about what's happening now that the pandemic has been declared over?

I mean, is this going to be a year of everybody's wildly going on vacation or have people gotten into a rut of not taking vacation, got used to staying home? Maybe we're going to do that again this year. Yeah, I don't know the exact numbers. I'm not a tourism researcher, but my impression from what I see around me is that people got to appreciate the things close by more. And I see people that do say now, instead of flying somewhere and having all the travel stress that we were mentioning before, plus sustainability issues coming up, maybe it's as nice to just go half an hour somewhere and go camping in nature somewhere and do something. something that does take us in a different environment, but still without all the hassle of traveling far.

And that also reminds me a little bit of this slow travel movement that has been also now been investigated a little bit, that it showed that when people, the distance, the actual distance cover doesn't really matter for the feeling of being away, but it's more the the time it takes to get there. So when you would go by bike or maybe take the train, take a slower mode of transportation, you can feel away from home while still being relatively close. So I think that's a nice way of thinking about it and rethinking maybe where we want to go. And I think it probably also, it relates to the individual differences we were talking about

before with people's differences in where they want to go on vacation. I think that now we saw in the U.S. at least huge surges in the number of people booking flights last summer, right? So this has really been a huge increase since the pandemic. But it's not everybody. I mean, I think there are people who maybe the more introverted people, maybe the people who don't have as much of a need for novelty, aren't sensation seekers, you know, so there's like these personality differences where I think some people really suffered during the pandemic because they weren't going away. and other people were like, you know, maybe I can just rent an Airbnb an hour and away,

and that feels just as good. And, you know, I think the climate changed thing is really also having a big impact. I've seen a lot fewer people, at least in academics, going to conferences for that reason, where, you know, maybe because of the pandemic, you know, they're realizing that the state of our planet is really important. And if they can do small things, you know, then they don't need to maybe travel quite as much as they used to. So what are the big questions that you both want to answer through your research? What are you looking at now? Dr. de Blum, let's start with you. Yeah, this project on unlimited leave I was briefly touching upon. I think this really is high on my research agenda to understand these processes that make people on the one hand feel this freedom, this flexibility. But at the

same time also sometimes resulting in self-exploitation or not taking off anymore or not taking good care of yourself. And so understanding why this happens, how it happens and also how you can prevent that on a more systemic level as a company, as a team, as a leader, what role do all these elements play in making it work? Because I think in fact, I like the idea of flexibility and giving autonomy, but we somehow need to create boundary conditions that really help to make it beneficial for everyone. Dr. Pressman, what are you looking at now? You know, my big interest has always been how do we protect ourselves against the harms of stress and really being able to give people advice that is targeted to the context that they're living in. And so I would love it

if we could figure out better, you know, depending on what's going on your life, what is the best vacation for you to take? Or what is the best thing that you could do in terms of even, you know, how you spend your time off on a daily basis, you know, what's the right advice? You know, and especially the thing I've gotten very interested in is energy from a psychological perspective, which I know Dr. de Blume is doing some work on as well. Because I think that that's something the pandemic has triggered is our own psychological energy crisis where I think we're all just feeling more depleted than we ever had.

And so trying to understand that better in terms of how do we help people feel more vigorous and energized in their day-to-day life, be it how they spend their time off or how they spend their day-to-day. I think that's a really critical question right now. Well, I want to thank you both for joining me today. I think the bottom line for our listeners is take your vacations. It's good for your health, your physical health, and your mental health. I want to thank you both for re-emphasizing that. And I hope you both have some nice vacation in your futures, too. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at www. www.combeckycology.org or on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. And if you like what you've heard, please leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at speaking of psychology at APA.org. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Wynerman. Our sound editor is Chris Kondyne.

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