My newsfeed has been charting the whereabouts of my football teams layers this Summer, I follow my team’s output so that I can stay updated with scores and transfers, but in the Summer I am advised on where they are all taking their holidays. Then in the more serious news, we are shown snippets of our Prime Minister and other politicians all taking their holiday breaks in a variety of locations. And of course we all see a wide number of our friends and family all off in a variety of different places having some important time away.
I’m doing the same in 48 hours time.
Everyone needs a holiday from time to time.
In 2009, researchers Joudrey and Wallace showed that taking a holiday helped to reduce and even remove the job stress of their study sample of almost 900 lawyers, who tend to have pretty stressful existences. Additionally, the researcher Scott McCabe stated that when we take a holiday the “personal benefits have been found to include: rest and recuperation from work; provision of new experiences leading to a broadening of horizons and the opportunity for learning and intercultural communication; promotion of peace and understanding; personal and social development; visiting friends and relatives; religious pilgrimage and health; and, subjective wellbeing” (p. 667). McCabe even states that these positive benefits of going on holiday are so strong that he believes families should be given some form of financial assistance if they cannot afford to take a holiday.
The benefits of taking a holiday go further than this as demonstrated by a group of researchers led by Xinran Lehto from Purdue University (2009) whereby it was concluded that family holidays positively contribute to family bonding, unity, communication and togetherness. Shared family memories and time spent together removed from the usual everyday activities (such as school, work, etc) help to advance the positivity and unity in the family.
Clearly they had not considered touring France in a VW camper van with two young children as my wife and I are doing….. Just kidding. I wrote about the positive benefits of family time a little while back, have a read: The Importance of Quality Family Time.
This is the first time my wife and I have ever been on holiday together with our children for a full two weeks, and it is the first time my children have been abroad, we’ve never really thought they would have appreciated it when they were younger. We’re going to a number of different places in France in our VW van and we’re going to see mountains, lakes, beaches as well as swimming pools and Disneyland!
We’re making it an adventure. We’ve planned pretty meticulously in order to remove as much holiday stress as possible and we’re fully aware of different rules, regulations and laws, I advise everyone to do the same whatever kind of holiday is being taken. Being self-employed, I’ll check in with my emails from time to time and won’t feel guilty about it, and likewise, I won’t feel guilty about being away either.
My offices will therefore be closed and will re-open after the UK Summer Bank Holiday on Tuesday the 29th of August and that is when the new academic year commences here and we start motoring forward with plans, courses, projects and much more besides towards the end of Summer and beginning of Autumn. I’m going to go and decompress and will be back fully rejuvenated and active here, there and everywhere that I usually am. I’ll be adding the odd photo from time to time in the coming weeks while on my travels, so do check my social media output for that. Have a great couple of weeks.
References:
Joudrey, A.D. & Wallace, J.E. (2009). Leisure as a coping resource: A test of the job demand-control-support model. Human Relations, 62, 195-217.
Lehto, X. Y., Choi, S., Lin, Y., & MacDermid, S.M. (2009). Vacation and family functioning. Annals of Tourism Research, 36, 459-479.
McCabe, S. (2009). Who needs a holiday? Evaluating social tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 36, 667-688.
