Do you sometimes feel bad, sick or stressed at the beginning or end of your vacations? A Dutch study is showing that vacations (this is American English, you say holiday in British English) can be not only a recharging and relaxing experience, but they can stress us or even make us sick.
Read the article below from Business Spotlight then complete the exercises after the article and send us your answers to tutor@virtualingua.de!
NETHERLANDS: It's summer, and everyone is off enjoying their holidays. Right? Well, maybe not. According to a new study, holidays don't make us happy — not for long, anyway.
Jeroen Nawijn of NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands has found out what people enjoy most about their holidays. Holidaymakers' happiness follows a curve, he says. Perhaps surprisingly for travellers excited to have finally arrived at their destination, that is the low point. "The first few days of a holiday trip appear to be particularly unpleasant, even dangerous," Nawijn told The Washington Post.
In exotic places, there is the danger of illness. Some people quickly develop flu-like symptoms once they are away from the adrenaline rush of demanding careers. Ad Vingerhoets of Tilburg University calls this "leisure sickness". Vingerhoets says this happens when people are unable to adjust to a slower pace of life. And, of course, travellers are often disappointed when the hotel, city or country is not as pleasant as they'd imagined.
Nawijn interviewed 1,530 Dutch workers for his study. He found that travellers' spirits are very high during their break, but longer holidays did not translate into greater satisfaction. He found that two- to six-day holidays offered the most benefits.
"The first few days of a holiday can be particularly unpleasant." Jeroen Nawijn
Just before returning home, most holidaymakers report feeling less stressed and more energetic. Unfortunately, says Nawijn, these feelings disappear almost completely during the first week back at work. He believes people are comparing their daily routines with the recent holiday thrill. Of course, lots of employees return to full email inboxes and a big stack of tasks that make them feel overworked almost immediately.
Nawijn also found that travellers are quite happy while preparing for their trips. So if you're looking forward to your summer holiday, enjoy that good feeling while it lasts.
Übersetzungen
low point = Tiefpunkt
flu-like = grippeähnlich
adrenaline rush = Adrenalinkick
demanding = anspruchsvoll
leisure = Freizeit-
adjust to a slower pace of life = sich auf eine langsamere Gangart einstellen
travellers' spirits are very high = die Stimmung der Reisenden ist sehr gut
break = Urlaub
energetic = energiegeladen
inboxes = Posteingangsordner
stack = Stapel
You can read the article on the Business Spotlight page here: http://www.business-spotlight.de/news/europe/that-holiday-feeling
1. What new vocabulary did you learn in the article? Write a list with the words in German and English.
2. Were there any sentences you didn't understand in the article? Send us the sentence and what you think it means (in German or English) and we will help.
3. Describe the curve of happiness during vacation. When are we happy and unhappy or disappointed during, before or after our vacations?
4. Do you think the results of this study are correct? What parts do you agree or disagree with?
We look forward to hearing from you!
Talk to you later,
Your Virtualingua Team
