Are vacations more stressful than work?
According to US Travel Industry surveys, 74% of Americans say that planning a vacation is more stressful than staying at work.
Even though Americans have some of the smallest vacation allowances, more than 50% fail to take their paid time off in a year.
When it comes to being able to Stress Less, many of us look to a vacation to do this with relaxation and absence of pressure in mind.
That’s just part of the story.
The best lessons vacations teach us about our ability to manage stress comes from when we accept, we can’t control everything, and things don’t go to plan.
I am a vacation planner.
When it comes to vacations, I am a now in the planning camp. Pre kids and a lot younger I’ve done the backpacking thing.
Now, with a family, and more people’s needs to balance and co-ordinate, a plan helps me feel in control. I know a few people who’ve found at the airport their passports are still in the kitchen drawer of unmentionables. Mine are checked at least four times.
In the UK spontaneous travel is a challenge. Drive in any direction and eventually you hit water. You need a ferry, tunnel, or plane to get off the rock. They aren’t designed for folk to just show up unannounced.
Planning helps me reduce the stress of everyone’s conflicting needs. I like researching where we might go, I enjoy poring over Lonely Planet knowing we’re not going to do that 15km backwoods hike, that sculpture park, the art gallery.
Planning is all about possibility. But eventually you need to nail the shape of a vacation. Flights booked – check. Dog’s boarding with Uncle Mike secured – check. Where we’re staying – check. Major things we’ll do across the vacation – check.
Learning to control the controllable.
Given so much rides on the vacation being perfect, if you’re a planner, the stress comes from knowing many of the elements rely on other people, people you don’t know, doing their thing perfectly. Whilst in the back of your mind knowing they won’t.
Stress-Less travel tip number 1 is therefore contingency. Arrive super early at the airport. Practically strip yourself down to the essentials to get through security. Stand in a long line to board the plane even though you have a seat already booked.
Contingency only reduces stress for those that have built a lot on the perfect plan. At the heart of our stress is having to cede control of something important to someone we don’t entirely trust. And that includes dealing with travel delays.
The real source of stress for Planners.
If you’re someone who needs to feel in control, things fall apart when events don’t go according to plan. But it’s not the plan that causes the stress.
Stress point 1 is how you blame yourself for only having Plan B. Because you’re now on Plan B and what if that goes wrong? Why were you so lazy not to have a Plan C or even D?
Stress point 2 is how you blame others for their lack of planning and control. The airline that didn’t deliver their part of getting the plane to take off on time. The airport for being understaffed despite having months of precise data as to how many people would be turning up to fly – looking at you Bristol airport thank you
Stress point 3 is how you experience guilt. Guilt at being exposed for not being the planner you thought you were. Guilt for how the change in plans affect those you love. Guilt for not having foreseen everything.
And at a time when our A game is most needed, our mind is fully occupied with guilt, anxiety, and regret instead of calm and clear focus on what we do now.
Stress Less tip number 1 – everything in context.
Put things in proper context and they’re hardly ever the disaster they first seem.
My personal example – some time ago we were travelling London to Tampa, changing planes in Charlotte. I’ve done this route before. Two hours connection and a small airport. The first time our plane landed over an hour late. We set a world speed record for racing through Charlotte, throwing ourselves on the plane, leaving our bags behind.
In the end it didn’t matter, we had to wait two hours in Tampa to be reunited with the bags and two hours in a two week vacation makes no odds.
Stress Less tip number 2 – savour the unexpected experiences.
Savour the experiences you’d not had if the plan had gone to plan.
My personal example – last year Autumn it was Tampa again. This time wising up I chose a longer connection time knowing Charlotte is a comfortable airport. Three hours connection. This time our plane lands two hours late. We don’t even make the plane.
Again, in the grand scheme of a vacation arriving at our destination two hours later didn’t matter.
With the extra time at Charlotte, I got to try some awesome southern cuisine – it really has good food. I admired some of the art-work and installations. Got to try out the white rocking chairs. Savoured and joined in a veterans home-coming parade which was touching and a reminder how Americans value their service-folk instead of them being largely invisible in the UK.
Life is richer with all those experiences I now have. It was worth the two hour trade off.
Stress Less tip number 3 – learn to let go.
When plans change, learn to let go. It’s so easy to feel guilt and ruminate at what might have, could have, should have happened. But you can’t change the past – learn from it but guilt never improves things.
In the words of Elsa, let it go. But letting go is about accepting and moving on. Trusting in the future not dwelling in the past.
American cope with flight delays all the time – I’ve seen it in the movies, let it go.
Avis stay open 24 hours waiting for people to show up for their rental care, let it go.
Our rental home is sitting waiting and doesn’t care what time we open the door, let it go.
Vacations help us manage stress, just not as you think.
We often think of vacations as being helpful to managing stress because of the change of tempo, relaxation and this much is true.
But vacations also offer the chance to reach us how to deal with our controller instincts. Planning is a skill not everyone has. If you are a planner at heart, then good for you.
But all strengths can be overplayed. For those of us that like control, the moments we can’t control everything drive our stress levels skywards.
But it’s not the delayed plane that’s causing stress, it’s your response to the delay.
It’s not the missed project milestone that’s causing your stress, it’s your response to it being missed.
It’s not the conflicting deadlines at work that’s causing your stress, it’s your choice how to respond to it.
Planners are prone to handing their happiness over to a schedule. As if working to the schedule is life worth living.
In one year, five years, ten years – at the end of your life did arriving at that meeting late matter, did the plane delay matter? It rarely ever does.
Given we know chronic stress causes illness and shortens life, it’s on all of us to decide whether sticking to the plan come what may is worth it, or we learn to let it go.
Your journey to Stress Less.
Being able to plan is an amazing quality many people don’t have. But all strengths overplayed contribute to your stress and anxiety.
I now know when the controller in me is behaving destructively, contributing to stress and anxiety.
Now I can hear it, I get to choose to control it, rather than it control me.
We all have strengths that when overplayed, contribute to our anxiety and our stress.
Here is the ten-minute free check that started my journey to control my Controller.
I invite you to try it – and start something good for yourself.
