Vacation: All We Ever Needed

Summer is upon us and the school year is coming to end. This means one thing - VACATION time!

But why is it so hard for us to pull ourselves away from the office? According to the US Department of Labor, the average American takes only 8 vacation days per year! We are addicted to our work. And even if we do get away, we are having trouble completely disconnecting. A quick response to an email here and there or 10 minutes on the phone won't hurt, will it? Well, it actually might. 

Disconnecting completely can do so much good for our bodies and our minds.  It has been shown to reduce stress, improve sleep, improve your mood, increase productivity when we return to work, and contributes to a decline in chronic health problems. 

Now we know what you're thinking. You feel MORE stressed after coming back from vacation because of all of the work piled up. But, according to clinical psychologist Deborah Mulhern when we don't take the time to unwind and disconnect, it's more difficult for our bodies to relax. 

"What neuroscience is showing is that we require down time in order for our bodies to go through the process of restoration," she told ABC News. "Without time and opportunity to do this, the neural connections that produce feelings of calm and peacefulness become weaker, making it actually more difficult to shift into less-stressed modes."

Even planning and anticipating a vacation can be beneficial to our health because it increases our moods and makes us happier people, which in turn increases our productivity pre-vacation. 

And finally,  sometimes in this culture of work work work vacation is seen is being lazy but  sometimes experiencing other cultures and lifestyles contributes to our creativity and opens our eyes to a whole new part of the world that we may never have seen before. 

So we encourage you, plan a vacation for you. For your health and the health of your families. And if planning a vacation sounds like a lot of work, there are a plethora of amazing companies that can do the work for you. One of our favorites is Epic Private Journeys- they curate the perfect adventurous vacations for you and your family or friends. All you have to do is show up: then sit back, relax and reap all the benefits of your vacation!