Let’s be real: how often have you arrived home from a two-week holiday, only to claim you still need a real holiday?

Too many times, if you’re anything like me.

Well, according to a whole lot of studies done on the matter, we are not the only ones to feel cheated by the idea of a vacation.

A recent survey conducted by Britain’s Institute of Leadership and Management used the data collected from 1 000 UK workers to note that the mere prospect of an upcoming vacation made 73% of respondents anxious.

Yes, just thinking about it causes stress.

Another survey, conducted in 2015 by US medical information site Healthline, found that “62% of over 2 000 readers who responded had “very or somewhat” elevated stress levels during winter holiday vacations,” reports Quartz.

Another one of the biggest drivers of holiday-related stress is finance.

Being forced to take a vacation, especially over the long holiday breaks when children are out of school, can put a real strain on the finances.

In another, Huffington Post surveyed 1 000 adult workers in the U.S. and, in 2013, found that those having to work longer hours “in the run-up to a vacation and longer hours afterwards to make up for lost time” were even more stressed than those who just didn’t take any time off.

So people get stressed out before, during and even after a holiday? Indeed – but there is good news shining out through all this.

With these vacations being so few and far between, the high levels of short-term stress often don’t have a long-term effect on people, points out Ellen Braaten, a Harvard Medical School professor of psychology:

The brain’s prefrontal cortex – the region associated with planning, among other things – only has a certain amount of capacity to deal with thoughts and actions. When people try to fill it with too many things at once, it gets overwhelmed. Braaten describes it as a “brain fog”: It prevents people from making sensible decisions, which can in turn make people more stressed.

Of course, to combat all those causes of stress it’s far easier to take time out at Seth’s luxury, fully-serviced cabin on 175 hectares of private land in the Klein Karoo, just outside Montagu.

Cabine du Cap is only a 2,5-hour drive, and the only interruptions you might experience will be the wildlife playing on the surrounding plains, valleys and peaks.

A stress-free zone to end the concept of stressful holidays? I’m down.

[source:qz]