Staycations vs. Vacations

TSA should stand for “totally stressed and aggravated.” If you’ve ever stood in a 45-minute airport security line, surrounded by cranky travelers, you’ve undoubtedly thought: Forget the vacation. I should’ve stayed at home.

But are staycations less stressful than vacations? Consider the pros and cons.

Staycations

The upsides: The stresses of travel don’t exist in your home. There’s no metal detector at your front door, and your Barcalounger is way roomier than an airline seat in coach. Even the simplest vacation requires research, booking, packing and planning. Managing those details — and figuring out an unfamiliar locale once you arrive — is the most stressful part of travel, a study by happiness researchers Michelle Gielan and Shawn Achor found.

Then there’s the cost. Money is a top cause of stress for most Americans, according to the American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America” report, and we spend about $1,000 per person on summer vacations. By staying home, you can enjoy low-cost, low-stress activities — the kind you rarely have time for — from reading a novel to exploring local museums.          

The downsides: You sacrifice brain-boosting novelty and sex-boosting excitement. People feel less inhibited on vacation: Travelers are more likely to have sex with their significant other on vacation than at home, Expedia’s "Heat Index” survey (from 2016) found. Sex increases the flow of nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood to your brain, so vacation sex is good for your mood and your mind.

Leaving home means leaving your comfort zone, and challenging yourself is one of the pillars of brain health, says Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. So if you opt for a staycation, break your routine. “Maybe stay overnight in a new neighborhood or try a different dish at a familiar restaurant,” says Lisa Niver, founder of WeSaidGoTravel.com.

Another risk? You may overfocus on household projects or struggle to disconnect from work. That’s important because disengaging from your job is good for your health. Extended breaks from email can lower your heart rate and stress levels, according to a study from the University of California, Irvine, and the U.S. Army.

Vacations

The upsides: Vacations are more meaningful than staycations, as 94 percent of participants stated in the study conducted by Gielan and Achor. Traveling exposes you to new cultures, new people and new activities. You learn not only about the world but also about yourself. When researchers at the University of Vermont studied travelers’ tweets, they found that happiness levels were higher the farther the Twitter posters journeyed from home.

Vacations are also good for your heart. The Framingham Heart Study, one of the largest studies ever on cardiovascular disease, found that men who didn’t take vacations for several years were 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack than those who did. In a University of Georgia study published in February 2016, researchers found that taking vacations led to lower stress and blood pressure. The benefits extend to mental health, as well. A resort vacation can have the same stress-reducing benefits as meditation, a study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry found. Research by the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin showed that women who vacationed frequently were “less likely to become tense, depressed or tired” and were more satisfied with their marriages than those who didn’t.

“Travel is good medicine,” said Paul D. Nussbaum, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in a 2013 travel report from the Global Coalition on Aging. By challenging your mind, travel “promotes brain health and builds brain resilience across the life span.”

The downsides: Your post-trip mood boost can be short-lived. People planning a vacation are happier than those who aren’t, a February 2010 study of Dutch adults found. But once the trip is over, their happiness levels are the same. The University of Georgia study produced more positive results — vacationers felt less stressed up to six week after their trips — but revealed another issue: weight gain. It was only about one pound, on average, after a one- to three-week vacation. But that’s a substantial increase for such a short period, says Jamie Cooper, an associate professor in the university’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Which is best?

“It’s 100 percent individual,” says Ryann Pitcavage, a New York-based life coach. “We all have unique stress triggers, so ask yourself: ‘Which option feels less stressful?’”

Whether you hop on a plane or hop on the couch, the key is taking time off. Leisure activities lead to more life satisfaction and less depression, and they can lower your blood pressure and stress hormones, research from the University of Pittsburgh's Mind-Body Center found. And yet on average Americans take only about 17.4 vacation days a year — down from around 20 days between 1978 and 2000 — according to the U.S. Travel Association’s Project Time Off initiative. The association says just over half of Americans did not use all of their vacation time in 2015, so people aren’t even taking advantage of the time that they have.

“Either way, the common thread is to make time for what we love,” Pitcavage says. “It’s about enhancing your quality of life.”