A meta-analysis published in 2009 in Journal of Occupational Healthwhich combines the results of seven independent studies on a precise research issue, reveals that the holidays indeed have positive effects on well-being, but that they fade quickly after the resumption of work.
The results of this work show that the benefits obtained during the holidays are essentially erased when they are measured on average 19 days after return to work.
For everyone to be on the same wavelength, the holidays generally designate a period of at least seven days during which a person stops any professional activity and can fully devote himself to personal occupations.
Almost 14 years after the publication of Meta-Analse, a group of German researchers redid the exercise with 13 studies published between 2009 and 2020, once again relating to the effects of the holidays on workers.
In their paper published in 2023 in the scientific journal European Psychologist, Scientists came into practically the same conclusions: the holidays improve well-being, but these profits disappear quickly as soon as work resumes.
However, a more recent meta-analysis shows that well-being continues to decrease after the holidays, but at a slower rate than that listed in the other two studies of the same genre.
Their results indicate that, even almost three weeks after the end of the holidays, the level of well-being remains higher than that observed before departure.
Worse after long vacation
If the researchers do not agree on this subject, they nevertheless recognize that a longer vacation lead to a faster disappearance of positive effects.
A worker recovers more during the holidays than during free weekly evenings, say the authors of the 2009 study.
He manages to detach himself from his professional environment and the stress that accompanies him, which allows him to regain his usual level of energy, to avoid the accumulation of fatigue and the exhaustion of physical and mental resources, it is written in the most recent meta-analysis.
“This allows individuals to continually increase their resources during the holidays, because they do not use their resources to compensate for the negative effects of professional requirements, but rather to increase their reserve of resources,” explain academics.
We therefore understand that the holidays-as the longest continuous recovery periods of the year-improve the well-being of workers.
«[Mais] The more time spends on vacation, the more time it spends in a state of high well-being. This state becomes their new level of adaptation. Once back to work, the drop in well-being due to professional stress will be stronger due to the marked contrast between professional stress and […] The holidays ”, certify Ryan Grant and his colleagues from Auburn University and the University of Georgia.
In some cases, especially those with a higher workload, the positive effects of the holidays on well-being fading in the days following the return to work.
This is why researchers recommend taking short vacation more often, between seven and ten days, instead of being absent from work longer once a year.
Less chance of professional exhaustion
To go a little further on the effects of the holidays on our well-being, a research published in Anxiety, Stress, and Coping was interested in stress levels and the risks of professional exhaustion, before and after the holidays.
We learn that if the level of stress returns to its starting point about three weeks after resumption of work. The risk of professional exhaustion decreases significantly after the holidays and remains low until the end of the 21 -day observation period.
However, there is a downside to lift.
The study was conducted with 113 employees of an industrial company, mostly men. The author thus recalls that these results must be interpreted with caution, because they are not necessarily representative of the entire population.