If you are drained or unwell after your vacation, welcome to leisure sickness

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We need vacations, but the reality is we don’t always get the rest we need and end up more drained when it is over. There’s even a name for it: Leisure sickness.
It can come from workaholics not being able to adjust to vacation, their constant need for achievement and sense of responsibility duelling with their intention to be carefree. Your return to work can also be marred through exhaustion from dealing with kids on vacation, change in time zones, disruption of regular routines weakening your immune system and being exposed to the breeding ground for bacteria on airplanes or not watching hygiene in foreign lands leading you to pick up a bug. Then, of course, as Noémie Le Pertel, chief executive officer of the Institute for Global Flourishing, notes in Harvard Business Review, there can be strained relationships on the vacation, the pre-vacation stress of getting everything done, unexpected travel delays and the gnawing weight of impending deadlines and workload when you return.
Yes, lots can go wrong when taking a vacation. A study in the Netherlands found leisure sickness affected about 3 per cent of the sample after their return. The most frequently reported symptoms were headaches and migraines, fatigue, muscular pains, nausea and viral infections.
The irony is that eager on our return to attack work and re-establish family routines, some people may not pay much attention to these symptoms. Dr. Le Pertel urges you to take an inventory of your health and energy when back. Rate yourself on a scale of one to 10 for key factors of well-being such as sleep, movement, connection, time outdoors and relaxation. Identify one action you can take for each in the first week to improve.
Resist the temptation to dive into work headfirst. When planning your vacation build in a day of transition and recovery before returning to normal, including keeping your auto-response to emails alive as a buffer. Digital workplace journalist Alexandra Samuel goes further, recommending before leaving that you schedule a couple of lunch or coffee dates after your return with people you’ll enjoy seeing, so that you have something to look forward to.
Your first instinct may be to get through all those emails that have piled up, but Dr. Le Pertel advises beginning with essential and time-sensitive tasks and catching up on regular emails and updates later. She also urges that amid the complications of re-entry and the possible side effects of leisure sickness to still take time to reflect and savour the positive vacation experiences, as well as lessons and insights gained. “If the trip left you feeling in a rut, maybe you can find solace in the fact that you’re home again getting back to normal,” she writes.
She suggests coming back from a vacation is a good time to establish new practices that further enhance your energy and productivity. Seek out habits and routines that feel replenishing in your day-to-day life. That might include exercising, shutting off notifications, blocking distractions or writing in a journal each night.
If you’re feeling drained by the vacation, she advises taking it as learning opportunity to set the ground for a more replenishing vacation in the future. “Decide how much structure was energizing versus draining on your energy. Who do you want to spend time with and how far do you want to travel? How much communication with your team do you need for your own well-being and connection needs?” she writes.
Despite all those negatives, vacations are still beneficial. Digital researcher Gloria Mark on her Substack blog shares studies that found reduced mortality among those who took regular vacations and also increased productivity at work. “Vacations afford us the opportunity to replenish our depleted resources, enabling us to perform at our peak upon our return,” she stresses. Be aware of leisure sickness but don’t let it deter you.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.