9 Rules for a Happier Vacation

Many people come home from vacation feeling disappointed. Not because the trip was bad, but because they expected it to do more than any vacation possibly can. In my previous episode on leisure https://www.arthurbrooks.com/podcast/the-science-behind-being-good-at-leisure, I discussed its importance to happiness and well-being. A vacation, done well, is really an opportunity to practice leisure more intentionally—whether that means a chance to reconnect with the people you love, lose yourself in nature or culture or read a book you've been meaning to for three years. In this episode of Office Hours, I share nine research-backed protocols that can help you return from time away feeling happier, more fulfilled, and genuinely restored. We discuss why anticipation is one of the most enjoyable parts of any trip, why shorter vacations may be better than longer ones, and how taking too many photos or posting on social media can pull you out of the very experience you're trying to enjoy. — Brought to you by: • ⁠⁠⁠Noble Mobile⁠⁠⁠ https://noblemobile.com/arthurbrooks—With Noble, there is only one plan: The No-Bull Plan. It’s simple. It’s transparent. And if you use less data, you get cash back. Get an exclusive offer at: ⁠⁠⁠https://noblemobile.com/arthurbrooks⁠⁠⁠ https://noblemobile.com/arthurbrooks — Where to find Arthur Brooks: • Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://arthurbrooks.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://arthurbrooks.com/ • In-person Retreats: ⁠⁠⁠https://retreats.arthurbrooks.com/⁠⁠⁠ https://retreats.arthurbrooks.com/ • Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter • X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/arthurbrooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://x.com/arthurbrooks • Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/ • Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/ArthurBrooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/ArthurBrooks/ • YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuyFRjJQFGCKzfHTBvWM6A⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuyFRjJQFGCKzfHTBvWM6A • LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-c-brooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-c-brooks/ • Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ mailto:[email protected] — Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (06:08) America's culture of skipping vacations (10:57) Vacation rule #1: Discern your motive (15:24) Vacation rule #2: Savor the anticipation (21:13) Vacation rule #3: Manage your expectations (23:32) Vacation rule #4: Break your trip into vacation-ettes (25:45) Vacation rule #5: Take fewer pictures (28:48) Vacation rule #6: Don’t post (30:43) Vacation rule #7: Leave work at home (32:37) Vacation rule #8: Come home early (34:00) Vacation rule #9: Brace yourself when you return (35:50) Recap of the 9 vacation rules (38:02) Q&A: Is music a distraction? (39:57) Q&A: Using screens during meals and before sleep — Referenced: • The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness:http://themeaningofyourlife.com/themeaningofyourlife.com http://themeaningofyourlife.com • Meaning Membership:https://hub.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-membership • Arthur’s newsletter:https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter • The Happiness Scale:https://learn.arthurbrooks.com/the-happiness-scale • The Pursuit of Happiness with Arthur Brooks:https://www.thefp.com/s/the-pursuit-of-happiness-with-arthur • The Meaning of Your Life Retreats: https://retreats.arthurbrooks.com • The Science Behind Being Good at Leisure: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/podcast/the-science-behind-being-good-at-leisure • 41% of American Workers Let Paid Vacation Days Go to Waste: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/41-percent-of-american-workers-let-their-paid-vacation-go-to-waste/378950 • The Contribution of Vacations to Quality of Life: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256987230_The_Contribution_of_Vacations_to_Quality_of_Life • ... References continued at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours — Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://penname.co/⁠.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, uh, new-vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy discount.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com/autodisc counts. Restrictions apply.

• 0:15Arthur Brooks?

  Confession, vacation is hard for me. I work a lot. If I were left to my devices, I would work all the time. And so maybe you, like me, find taking a vacation a hard thing to do and relaxing, pulling away from your generative work a hard thing to do. I'd like to tell you that the perfect vacation will make you permanently happy, or at least happy for the rest of the year. But it doesn't because that's not the way that your limbic system works. Today's episode is about how you can have a happier vacation. Really, what it's about is how you can be happier as a person by taking the right kind of vacation and not the wrong kind of vacation, which many people do. And also how you can be happier while you're on vacation. I'm going to try to give you the criteria for building vacation that actually suits

• 0:59Arthur Brooks?

  you the best, as well as the people that you love.

• 1:09Arthur Brooks?

  Hey, friends. Welcome to Office Hours. I'm Arthur Brooks. This is a show about lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love using science and ideas. That's my mission as a social scientist, is to do that. But I need you with me. If you're trying to make the world a better place with more love and happiness, I hope this has been helpful to you, this show. And if it is, please do share the show with other people. We're building a pretty big following of people who share these values. And I like that we can be part of that. I think that we can make a better world with these ideas. This is what science is supposed to do, as a matter of fact. Anyway, I also hope that you're enjoying the show. If you do, please do leave a comment. Please do like and subscribe to the show.

• 1:53Arthur Brooks?

  It actually helps us and the algorithm get to more people. And share it with your friends. Tell your friends that this is something you like to listen to and let us continue to grow as a movement of people dedicated to happiness and love. It's summertime. It's June. And that means that a lot of you are thinking about your vacations. And that's what I want to talk about today. Today's episode is about how you can have a happier vacation. Really what it's about is how you can be happier as a person by taking the right kind of vacation and not the wrong kind of vacation, which many people do. And also how you could be happier while you're on vacation. Maybe you've already planned your vacation, maybe not. One way or the other, maybe I can shift a little bit the science of your vacation taking,

• 2:37Arthur Brooks?

  understanding what's actually important to you. So this is going to be quite specific. I'm not going to talk about what everybody should do. I don't know what you should do. I'm going to try to give you the criteria for building vacation that actually suits you the best, as well as the people that you love. Now, as always, please give me your comments or criticisms. You can write them to me at [email protected] or put them wherever you're watching or listening to this in the comment section. We do look at the comments. And also, if you want more content like this, please do subscribe to my newsletter. 210,000 people are getting it every Friday. It's full of new ideas, things that you're not, that might be related to the episode. It might not be.

• 3:18Arthur Brooks?

  One way or the other, it's the same style, just in written form, 300 to 500 words. You can read it really quickly Friday morning. Also has usually some stupid jokes that I think are funny, and I hope you do as well. You can get that at arthurbrooks.com/newsletter. If you're interested in going a little deeper and maybe working in person with other people who like this show or interested in this material, do think about checking out some of the retreats that we're doing. This is a nice way to actually work in person with me and others who are dedicated to the science of happiness. You can actually look at that on our website as well. You can go to retreats.arthurbrooks.com. And when you're on the website, you'll find all kinds of other cool stuff. You can take the happiness scale to measure your happiness.

• 4:02Arthur Brooks?

  You can take a little internet workshop that will help you with what you've got going on. There's lots and lots of cool things. And there's even a community of people that are meeting once a month for an hour on Zoom with me. They have access to an AI tool that actually helps you with all the things that we do in the science of happiness and lots of other cool bells and whistles to help you become a happier person and bring happiness to other people as well. So thanks for all of that. And now let's talk about the main point today, which is this theme of vacations. It seems like we wouldn't need a show about how to be happier on vacation, right? I mean, what could come more naturally than that? Well, I don't know. It doesn't come naturally to me at all. Confession, vacation is hard for me.

• 4:45Arthur Brooks?

  I work a lot. If I were left to my devices, I would work all the time. I mean, part of it is because I really love my work. I mean, this is, I mean, this beats having a real job. Talking to you about love and happiness is the best thing ever. But the truth is, I've always been like that. You know, when I was 19 years old and I, you know, left college to become a professional French horn player, all I did was practice and think about the future and my career. And then I went to graduate school and got my PhD and I just worked and worked and worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It's a miracle that Esther, you know, put up with that while I was in graduate school. And then I was an assistant professor and you'd think, well, that's a pretty nice lifestyle. Are you kidding me? I was working 80 hours a week, writing my papers.

• 5:29Arthur Brooks?

  I'm just, I'm a little bit workaholic. And that's because I'm a striver and so are a lot of you. Whether you have a traditional education or not, you're really serious about your life and you want to put points on the board. And so maybe you, like me, find taking a vacation a hard thing to do and relaxing, pulling away from your generative work, a hard thing to do. I did a show some months back on the essence of leisure, how to get good at leisure. And if you need to, go re-watch that show. What does excellent leisure mean? This is going to be an even more practical look at how to build a vacation. What do they all have in common for good vacations?

• 6:11Arthur Brooks?

  And most especially, how can you build one that's suited to your personality and your particular priorities? And even if it's hard, how do you get better at vacation? That's what we really want to get at. Okay, now, Americans are actually pretty bad at vacation, I have to say. So I'm not alone in the way that I struggle with the, you know, getting away. A lot of people are like, I don't want to go sit on a beach. It's just so boring. Maybe you think, oh, that's the best thing ever, but just chilling on the beach, that isn't so great for a lot of people. And how do I know that? Because I've got data. The US Travel Association says that in the 1990s, the last decade of the 20th century, Americans took on average 20.3 vacation days per year. Okay?

• 6:52Arthur Brooks?

  20.3 in the whole year, not including federal holidays and not including weekends. By 2018, that had fallen by 14% to 17.4 days. In other words, we're getting richer but taking fewer vacations. A lot of what you hear, well, that's because Americans are getting so much poorer. That's wrong. That's simply factually incorrect. We are actually getting richer and one of the reasons maybe we're getting richer is because we are taking fewer vacation days. Furthermore, we have access to more vacation days that we're taking. Americans left 768 million vacation days voluntarily unused in the year 2018. And I'm sure it's higher today. I mean, that's a lot. That's mind-boggling to Europeans.

• 7:34Arthur Brooks?

  When I first moved to Europe when I was 25 years old, it's a, and not just Europe, Spain, it's a vacation culture. I mean, Spain, the number one industry in Spain is vacation, not the Spaniards' vacation, but other people taking vacation in Spain because the weather's so nice. Tourism is the number one industry in Spain. It's a huge part of the economy is the way that that works. But Spaniards themselves are very serious about their vacations. When you go to a party in America, you know, and you're breaking the ice with somebody, it's like, what do you do? Which means, what do you do for work? As my wife pointed out, who is, my wife is a Spaniard, for as those of you who don't know. She said, that's incredibly discreet. You're asking people what they do for money. The most normal question in Spain at a party is, were you going on vacation?

• 8:18Arthur Brooks?

  I kid you not. It's like, oh, yeah, you're going to Forte Mandetta, you're going to the La Costa Dorada, you're going to some, you know, one of these like Tony vacation spots or someplace to the, you know, to the beach, or you're going to the mountains and that's what you're talking about. You don't care if the guy's a lawyer or a college professor or politician. You don't care. You care whether going on vacation, whether you know somebody who's there. That's what people really have in common because that's priorities. In Spain, you get double pay traditionally for the month that you're on vacation. You get double pay in December, so you can buy your Christmas presents. You get double pay in August when you're on vacation, so you can pay for your vacation, which suggests to me that people in Spain need to save more money. And, you know, you get a whole, you get a whole month too.

• 9:01Arthur Brooks?

  I mean, stuff just stops in Italy and Spain and other parts of Europe in August. You want to, you actually want to get something done around in your house and get a contractor? Good luck. It's not going to actually happen. I mean, whole businesses literally shut down. In my neighborhood in Barcelona, there would be almost no stores open the entire month of August, which Seems like an unbelievably good opportunity for somebody who wants to work, except that most people weren't in the neighborhood either. So maybe that was pretty smart. One way or the other, there's a different attitude toward it. And when it comes to well-being, I'm not going to say what for economic growth, what's better. I'm not going to say what's better for productivity, but for well-being, the Spaniards have got it right. This is clear. What do I mean?

• 9:46Arthur Brooks?

  That they're going on vacation and that they like vacation. Why? Because vacations, understood properly, are a huge source of well-being. And there's the journal called the Annals of Tourism Research. This is a journal of everything, my friends, that read, that ran a pretty well cited article from 2012 that showed that vacations increase quality of life for most people. Here's the catch. More than health, money, family and work. It only came in second place to religion. So being religious is really good for your mental health and your well-being. And especially if you take vacations. That's what it comes down to.

• 10:28Arthur Brooks?

  The other stuff is important, but that's a big deal when you think about it. And if you don't know how to take vacations, that means that you don't know, that you don't actually know how to, how to, to use this really important part of life, which is getting away from your ordinary life and doing something that's fun and leisurely and enhances your relationships. And well, let's be more specific. What should it do? That's the main question I want to get to today. Because I have actually, in combing through the research on this, which is not research, my friends, this is me search. This is me trying to figure out how I can actually get over this barrier and have the best possible vacations. In the literature, out come nine rules

• 11:12Arthur Brooks?

  for having a great vacation this summer or any time in your life. So that's what I want to build. Now, I want you to think about this in terms of your own priorities. I'm not going to tell you where you should go. I want you to understand yourself better. Starting with rule number one, discern your motive for going on vacation in the first place. Different people had different motives for going on vacation depending on their tastes, their memories, their history, their pocketbook, their psychological wiring. And there's all sorts of interesting patterns. I'll give you an example. Introverts like the mountains and extroverts like the beach. Like, huh, that's weird. Why is that? I'll tell you why, because introverts don't like to get naked in front of other people.

• 11:53Arthur Brooks?

  I mean, practically naked in America, like literally naked in Spain is unbelievably awkward. That's why. It makes sense, right? Because in the mountains, you're all covered up, which introverts like to do. Okay, got it. By the way, some of you are very modest extroverts, so don't take offense. But that's one of the funny things that you find in the literature is that different strokes with different personalities and different motives for what they actually do. Okay, so what's your motive? Let's find out. There's a 2015 study of Danish tourists, and this is from Advances in Economics and Business. The Relationships Between Socio-demographic Variables, Travel Motivations, and Subsequent Choice of Vacation. That shows, based on these Danish tourists, that there are six basic motives.

• 12:36Arthur Brooks?

  And this goes through a large sample of people and asks them why they go on vacation in a structured set of interviews. And out pop basically six motives. It's a pretty exhaustive list. And knowing what your motive is, is going to be really helpful for building the vacation that best suits your motives. Because one of the reasons people don't like their vacations, they got one motive and they wind up going on a kind of vacation that's incongruent with that. So for example, you have a motivation of getting away from it all, but you're doing something that's actually unbelievably stressful and intensive. And you're wondering why you don't like your vacation, because there's incongruence. So let's start with your motives. Number one is exploration. A lot of people really want to explore, which is a learning motive.

• 13:18Arthur Brooks?

  Number two is escape, just not ordinary life. Some people want to get away from ordinary life. That's a primary motive. Number three. Family and friends, AKA relationship deepening. Very big motive for a lot of people on vacation. Number four is prestige. Their motive for going on vacation is kind of looking cool or looking rich. Now, that's a bad motive, as you can imagine. If you watched any of my stuff, you know that that's all based on social comparison. I'm going to come back to that one later. Still, that's something that shows up a lot, that people will say that that's their motive. Usually not in those words. They'll say, "My motive for vacation is prestige." But what it comes down to through the structured interviews is that's what they want. They want social comparison. They want to do something that other people envy.

• 14:01Arthur Brooks?

  Number five, nature, just the beauty of nature. Now, I've done episodes on the importance of nature and how nature actually changes your brain. And some people actually know that, and they know that the more nature that they can actually get into, long hikes, sleeping outside, whatever it happens to be. These are sort of national parks people typically, that they really, really get a lot out of it. And if you know that's the case, then that's an important motive for you to be gearing your vacation plans around. And number six is history and heritage. That's different than exploration. It's not just seeing new things, but it's a learning motive as well. And people really, really love that, as it turns out. So, how does that map on to your motives? And by the way, you don't have to choose just one. You might have like three and have them in order.

• 14:45Arthur Brooks?

  But the more that you know what they are, the more likely you are to choose a vacation that's going to be satisfying to you and regenerative for you. I'll talk in a minute about prestige. So, I'm going to leave that aside for now. One thing that I will note is that in almost all of the cases, no matter what your motive is, you'll get more from your vacation if you share it with people that you love. One of the things that you find is that there are very few people that have the most fun vacations by going away by themselves. Now, maybe you're one of those people. Okay, but that's not typically the case. It's not what we see. When you're enjoying something and you're enjoying it with others, the enjoyment tends to rise because we are social animals. That doesn't mean you're out there with 300 people. It might mean one other person, whoever it happens to be.

• 15:30Arthur Brooks?

  But consider the social aspect, the social magnifying aspect of the motive that you have. Okay, that's rule number one. What's your motive? Now, rule number two. When you do choose a vacation that's congruent with your motive, savoring the anticipation of the vacation is a critical component of getting the most out of it. One of the happiest parts of vacation is looking forward to it. There's some good studies on Dutch and Chinese vacationers. And they see that they have way greater happiness over non-vacationers in the weeks leading up to their holiday. It's not just that people go on vacation and they're happier than people who stay home. It's people who are gonna go on vacation are happier than people who are gonna stay home.

• 16:14Arthur Brooks?

  I mean, a really significant thing, as it turns out. I'll put a couple of links to the research in that. One from the Applied Research in Quality of Life. Great journal. And the Annals of Tourism Research: Empirical Insights. The data say that one of the greatest sources of happiness from any pleasurable activity, actually, is the anticipation of it. And there's a reason for that. There's a neurochemical reason for that. I've talked a lot about the neuro-modulator dopamine, which is really, it's not, people think of it as a kind of a pleasure chemical. It's not. It leads to anticipation of reward. Dopamine is implicated in the wanting and learning and liking cycle, where you learn about something that actually is good for you. And so the result of it is that you want it more and that you crave it. And you anticipate the reward from getting it the next time.

• 16:59Arthur Brooks?

  All of those feelings that you get, that's all, it all has to do with with dopamine is being sprayed from a little thing in your brain called the locus ceruleus, largely onto the nucleus accumbens in your brain. "God, I want that. I want that roast beef sandwich." You know, "I want that, you know, to see that person, you know, that I'm anticipating seeing somebody that I'm falling in love with." That's dopamine talking right there. And the same thing is true when you anticipate a beautiful vacation that you've planned. And when you savor it in advance, what you're doing is giving yourself little spritzes of dopamine onto your nucleus accumbens. Thing is gonna be so fun. I'm gonna like it. It's gonna be so great. And that adds to your happiness in the run-up to the vacation,

• 17:44Arthur Brooks?

  which net is good for you, good for your well-being. That's great. Use this science to your advantage by setting up your vacation agenda in advance.

• 17:54Arthur Brooks?

  And studying it, studying your destination, learning more about actually what you're going to see. I used to do this a lot with one of my sons. When my kids were little, my three kids, I don't have 16 kids, so this was possible. You know, I had three kids and each one of them, they each wanted to do different things. And once a year, I would go away alone with them. I was, I was a super hard worker, but once a year, I would take three or four days with each one of my kids and go someplace that they wanted to go, just the two of us. You know, my middle son, who's always been an avid hunter and fisherman, we would go hunting and fishing. Hunting is not my thing, but he is my thing. With my daughter, we would go to amusement parks. She was super into like radical rides. And then she went on to, you know, she's a, she's in the Marine Corps. She likes strong experiences.

• 18:38Arthur Brooks?

  And my oldest son, he was very, very into classical music from, from a young age. And so for his birthday in May every year, we would go to New York City. We would go to the Met. We would see opera. And he was like 12 year old kid, he wanted to see opera or chamber music. And, and we would go see the New York Philharmonic. And for me, that's my whole background. I'm seriously crazy about classical music and I know a lot about it. But that was an opportunity for him to learn about it. And so what we would do in the anticipation of these trips, two months before, we would actually get our tickets and know what we were gonna do. And we would buy the scores of the pieces that we were gonna see. Either the orchestral pieces or the chamber music pieces. And we would study the scores with CDs, the old days of CDs, before he went to bed at night.

• 19:21Arthur Brooks?

  So we'd go before, you know, before we'd say his prayers and say goodnight. For half an hour, we would go through a movement or two of whatever it is that we were gonna go see in New York City. And he would learn the music, which really helped him to read music better. If it was an opera, we would study the libretto or, or we would actually watch videos of the opera. So he really had the tunes in his head. And the result was he got more and more and more excited. And me too. It was so great. What we were doing was like our locus ceruleus was like a little fire hose of dopamine inside our brain, saying this is gonna be so great. If you're not into classical music, you're like, what a drag. But do your thing, whatever it happens to be, you'll like it better. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that too much anticipation can backfire. If you imagine you're Vacation will put you in a state of constant bliss.

• 20:06Arthur Brooks?

  So you gotta have realistic expectations that nothing is perfect. You don't want to be disappointed, to be sure. But enjoying the learning about what you're going to do in advance, that's a really great thing. That will really increase your, the, enhance the value of the vacation with respect to your well-being.

• 20:24Speaker 03

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• 21:09Speaker 03

  It gives you an incentive to unplug. Noble Mobile is the phone plan that finally aligns incentives with what's good for you. Use less data, earn money back. And when you do, you'll be living once again in real life. And you're gonna like how it feels.

• 21:24Arthur Brooks?

  Okay, we're only on number two. Now we're gonna go to number three, and I got nine. Okay, so I'm not gonna be here all day. Let me, uh, let me pick up the pace a little bit. Number three, manage your expectations. That kind of picks up on the last point that I just made in the following way. Time away might raise your perceived well-being, but it doesn't last super long. I'd like to tell you that the perfect vacation will make you permanently happy, or at least happy for the rest of the year. But it doesn't because that's not the way that your limbic system works. Your limbic system is console of tissue inside your brain between 2 and 40 million years old, which is basically the, the, the, the factory of your emotions. It's there to give you signals about things around you, whether they're threats or opportunities.

• 22:08Arthur Brooks?

  It's not there to give you a permanently nice day. If you did something like had a good vacation or ate a, ate a, you know, Delicious Snickers bar and it gave you permanently better mood. That would distract you from things you need to be paying attention to. Potential threats. That would be dangerous. The result is that, yeah, you can, you can get higher, a higher affective state. You can improve your mood. You can get more positive emotionality. By having a really great vacation, but it's not going to be a permanent state of affairs. And it's important that you manage your expectations about that. Not thinking, oh, this can be great forever because it isn't. It tends to wear off and, and in some cases, kind of quickly. There's a 2010 Dutch study of vacationers. And it, it found that for sure, um, while they were on holiday. That's what they call it.

• 22:53Arthur Brooks?

  People on vacation were healthier than when they weren't on vacation, less stressed, more energetic, more satisfied and better spirits. For sure. Generally were. Those effects largely disappeared at the end of the first week back at work. They got a glow of a few days. That's what it came down to. Now there's some studies that find a slightly longer lasting effect, even up to weeks at a time. But none of them say that they're going to be permanent or even really, really long term. So manage your expectations that this is a good thing to do. What you're trying to do is to make some really nice memories with people that you love, doing something you really enjoy. You're going to be really significantly happier and healthier while you're doing it. And you get a lot of savoring beforehand, but don't think that six months from now that this is, this is the game changer because it probably isn't.

• 23:39Arthur Brooks?

  Okay, now, one way to make it last a little bit longer, however, is lesson number four. The strategy number four. Break your trip or break your vacation into vacationettes, into little vacations. Don't take one month in Borneo. Take 15 long weekends to the Jersey Shore. Or wherever your thing is, what it comes down to. Now, this is a great way to get an afterglow that goes on longer because it's more frequent. It's more frequent dosage. Is to kind of, I remember when I was a little kid, I remember thinking, um. I wanted to play, it was summertime, I want to play outside all day. And what really annoyed me was that my mom would make me come back for meals.

• 24:21Arthur Brooks?

  You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Come on, man, every day, every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Obviously, I wasn't really into eating, which is why right now I look like a skeleton in a shirt. But my point being that it was like that when I was a kid. And so I remember thinking and proposing to my mom, you know, how about if I eat all three of my meals at breakfast? And I can just stay playing until I go to bed at night? Not realizing, of course, that that doesn't work metabolically. That's not gonna work. That's not a strategy that actually worked with my biology. But the same thing is true with the big vacation. One big vacation for most people actually doesn't give you a very big afterglow. And more frequent, smaller vacations will give you an effect that will, it's not super long term, but that's okay, because your next vacation is right around the corner.

• 25:07Arthur Brooks?

  Over the past few years, since our kids have grown up, Esther and I like to take pretty frequent weekends away. You know, we'll go someplace. Where do you want to go? You want to go to the mountains? You want to go to the shore? You want to go to Florida? Whatever. We'll just, you know, go. Which is great. What a privilege it actually is to be able to pick up and do stuff like that. And what we find is that we're quite refreshed by doing that. Not as much as, you know, the two-week deal, but more often. So maybe that's the way to think about it. That actually, there's an interesting paper from Stress and Health. "Effects of Short Vacations," is the name of the article. I'll put that in the notes. These are sort of punctuations to your equilibrium that you can spread out over time, even if they fade. And that leads to higher life satisfaction and better mood overall

• 25:52Arthur Brooks?

  than the single, long vacation. Give that some thought. That might be the way you want to take your vacation days. Number five. Okay, here's a counterintuitive one. Take fewer pictures. I know, I know, you wanna take pictures so that you can remember this, but think about this. It's such a funny thing. Human beings are just time travelers. This amazing prefrontal cortex behind our foreheads, the supercomputer of our brains, allows us to live in two or three time zones simultaneously. The past, the present, and the future. We're retrospective, we're mindful sometimes, and we're prospective, which is to say that we're thinking about things to come. The trouble is that we're better at retrospection and prospection,

• 26:35Arthur Brooks?

  the past and the future, than we are at being here now. That's why the great Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote "The Miracle of Mindfulness", that starts off by saying, "When you're washing the dishes, you need to be fully present while you're washing the dishes, because if you don't, you're missing your life." You're literally thinking about a time that's not now, and in so doing, by the time that now is over, well, it's gone, because you weren't fully present. You were probably thinking about the future. The future, when, you know, at that particular time when it comes, the things that you were thinking about will already be in the past. People live this way, and I live this way. And that's a problem, isn't it?

• 27:18Arthur Brooks?

  That's what taking pictures on vacation kind of is. It's like, I'm gonna take a picture of something, so that, and I'm thinking about the future while I'm taking the picture, imagining myself in the future, remembering what is currently the present, but at which point it will be the past. And it wasn't fully alive in that moment. Okay, so you need some data to see whether or not that's a good argument, don't you? Hope so. I have got it. What you find is that when people are engaged in highly enjoyable activities, they have more fun when they don't take pictures. Some estimates say that between, you decrement your enjoyment of something when you're taking pictures by 15 to 20%. And that's a lot, if this vacation is important to you. That comes from psychology and marketing.

• 28:03Arthur Brooks?

  You distract yourself from having experience. It's impossible to savor something when you're thinking about yourself enjoying this in the past. So how do you do that? How do you deal with that? Now, one way to do that, if you're pretty Buddhist about this, is to say, "No pictures. This will be, this will be evanescent. This will be a thing that's a moment in time, never to be recreated." It's like making a snowman and waiting for it to melt. Okay, alright. Or, or you can simply say, yeah, we're gonna wanna have, we're gonna wanna memorialize this vacation with some pictures. So I'll tell you what, we're out here with our family of four. One person each day is assigned to taking pictures, and the other three of us are prohibited from doing so. Just make a rule.

• 28:47Arthur Brooks?

  That turns out to be a really, really good rule on vacation. So everybody enjoys it, and later you can all look back on it and say, that was fun. And that seems like a pretty good, um, that seems like a pretty good compromise to me. Okay, now, number six is an adjunct to number five. Don't post about your vacation. That one is really clear. That gets back to the prestige motive. You know, why am I taking my vacation? Because I wanna be fancy. Well, what's the best way these days to be fancy on your vacation? And get the, the, get the benefit of showing what a fancy person you are with your vacation of Fiji or something? You put it online. And so other people can say, oh, man, she's living, man. She's, she's obviously making a lot of money and having a great time.

• 29:31Arthur Brooks?

  And she's with, you know, some really, really handsome guy and the whole thing. But the truth is, you're ruining your own experience when you're doing that because you're living your vacation for somebody else. You're trying to elicit envy, for example. Now, now, evolution is what's making you do this. This is not your problem, not your fault. You're not a terrible person. You're not venal and, and, and weak. Evolution says that you live in a hierarchy, and you wanna rise in the hierarchy. Evolution doesn't care about your happiness at all. This is not something that's been, you know, this is that, that, that's natural selection or sexual selection is based on happiness. It's based on fitness, on biological fitness. And, and that's exhibited in all sorts of different ways, including the extent to which we can afford a fancy vacation.

• 30:17Arthur Brooks?

  So the reason that you wanna put this stuff online is to show how fit you are, to show that you're somebody who has high status, is the way that that works. That's the prestige motive. And that, my friends, will lead you to enjoy your vacation less and to be less happy. That is real clear. Article from 2018 in the Journal of Consumer Research, "How the intention to share can undermine enjoyment, photo-taking goals and the evaluation of experiences." It shows that pictures are bad enough, but taking pictures for the explicit motive of posting those pictures will basically suck the enjoyment out of your vacation. Number seven, a lot of people talk about taking a working vacation. Or just doing a little work when they're on vacation.

• 31:02Arthur Brooks?

  Bad idea. Generally speaking, that's a bad idea. Vacation is super hard on workaholics because they're thinking about their work the whole time. And they're stressed out because they're not doing their work. And because their work is actually piling up. And so one way to cope for a lot of workaholics. Trust me, I know. Is to take along a little work. Like this way, look, my emails won't pile up. And I'll have something to do after the kids go to sleep. Don't do it. This strategy won't just lower your satisfaction during the trip. It'll also give you a worse vacation hangover when you come back. Here's a really interesting finding from the Journal of Stress and Health. Researchers find that engaging in work-related activities. Lowers the positive effects of vacation.

• 31:46Arthur Brooks?

  One, three, and 10 days after returning from work. In other words, the glow that you get, which is not permanent. Not even super long-term, you won't get it if you work while you're on vacation. Plus, my friends, you'll have a spouse who's annoyed with you. And you'll have kids who are like dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. Sounds an awful lot like I know that soundtrack.

• 32:08Arthur Brooks?

  If you want to busy yourself with something, pick up a book and learn something that you're not getting paid to learn. People have been asking me for years and years and years about my reading list, for example. And I have a reading list on my website. If you want to look at it, arthurbrooks.com/readinglist with a hyphen, which means reading a list. Just go to the website, you'll find it. And you'll find something that, you know, many of these things I've actually read while I was on like vacations from work. It's not dumb beach reads. This stuff is serious stuff that will be generative, that will be like Joseph Peeper's Good Leisure. This stuff will help you learn and that'll be fine. But it won't be your job, which is what you actually need a break from, so you don't burn out. And vacation is supposed to be burnout insurance, among other things. Okay, number eight.

• 32:53Arthur Brooks?

  Come home early. Now, I don't mean cut your vacation in half. You know, get into a screaming argument with your spouse and leave. And that's not what I'm talking about at all. I don't want that to happen. But what I am saying is come home a little bit earlier from your vacation than you have to. So that you don't have to immediately jump right back into work. Researchers find that easing back into your work routine is better than traveling up to the very last second for enjoyment and for happiness. And it actually gives you something to look forward to, kind of like a second mini vacation. And so you finish your vacation and you get three days at home before you have to go back to work. You're actually going to really enjoy those days at home. It turns out it's going to be kind of relaxing for you. You'll be able to, to do some things that you want to do that, that, that are not just your vacation.

• 33:38Arthur Brooks?

  You should come home before the weekend rather than returning on Sunday night with a full work week ahead. For example, come back on Friday and give yourself a vacation from the vacation. And you're going to actually like that better. Sort of related to this, there's a Leo Tolstoy quote that I've always liked where he said, happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation. But the last day of your vacation should also, I think, be preceded by a nice little honeymoon after that. I like to do that and that's something that I've adopted and I've found really great results of that. Okay, number nine. We got one more to go. Brace yourself when you return and manage your feelings. And the reason for that is that one of the great benefits of vacation is the contrast with work.

• 34:23Arthur Brooks?

  With a contrast with the day to day grind, the things that you don't like that you're actually able to get away from. That's really good. But there's contrast when you come back as well, which you're going back to the things that you're actually getting a break from. Now, again, if you're a super workaholic and vacation is just, oh, the worst, then, then you'll be looking. If you're a thank God it's Monday kind of person, then, then who knows? Maybe you'll get the warm glow from actually having the thing that's over. You know, when you go back from work, how was vacation? You're like, I got through it. Like you're just coming back from Vietnam or something. This is not for you. For most people who really do like their vacations, you got to brace yourself because, and manage your feelings. Because if all goes well and you're successful at having a really good vacation. You'll have increased enjoyment and life satisfaction,

• 35:07Arthur Brooks?

  which is good news. The bad news is that ordinary life might be, the contrast, might be disappointing or frustrating to you. Like, you know, eating a carrot after a piece of candy. It's not that great is the way that that works. But the more that you know, the better off you're actually going to be. Don't be surprised by that. It's completely normal. I have a policy of paying attention to this and thinking about how I'm going to use my work. When I come back in the most generative possible way. I also have a policy of not making significant life changes in the first week that I come back to work. Because I'm not really in the right frame of mind to do so. So think about it. And once again, once you know what's actually happening inside your brain and inside your heart, then you won't be surprised.

• 35:50Arthur Brooks?

  And not being surprised is the essence of managing yourself. So that your feelings don't manage you. Those are the big nine, my friends. You know what I'm going to do is so that you can remember these things. I'm just going to go through the list one last time. And we'll put them up on the screen at the same time. Number one, discern your motive for vacation. Why are you going on vacation? Once you know, you'll design the right kind of vacation. Number two, savor the anticipation of your vacation. Start thinking and studying it a while before you do it. Number three, manage your expectations about how great it's going to be and how long it's going to be that great. Number four, break your trip into smaller vacations. Especially if you find that the one big one is not giving you what you seek. Number five,

• 36:36Arthur Brooks?

  take fewer pictures or assign one person in your party to take all the pictures each day. Number six, don't post. Or if you do post, certainly don't post while you're on vacation. Now, don't post. Number seven, leave your work at home. Actually get away from your work. And number eight, come home early. Get a little vacation after the vacation. Last but not least is brace yourself when you return. Manage your feelings. So your feelings at work don't manage you. Hope this helps. You're not broken. You're meaning-starved. I talk to people all the time who are, by any external measure, successful. They've built careers. They have families. They've checked the boxes. And yet, something feels off. Life feels thin.

• 37:21Arthur Brooks?

  Like you're going through the motions. Like you're watching yourself from the outside. And here's what I want you to know. That feeling is not a personal failing. It's not ingratitude. It's not something wrong with you. It's a meaning problem. And it's an epidemic. The modern world is extraordinary at giving us comfort, achievement, and distraction. It's terrible at giving us meaning. And no amount of success will fix that. I've seen it in my research and I've seen it in my own life. That's exactly what we work on at MEA, the Modern Elder Academy, in a program I've developed called "The Meaning of Your Life." It's not a lecture. It's not a quick fix.

• 38:03Arthur Brooks?

  It's several days of real work in a small group on the questions that actually matter. If what I'm describing sounds familiar, I hope you'll come take a look.

• 38:17Arthur Brooks?

  Let's finish up with a couple of questions. We've got some good ones this week. This one's from... We have a duo of people asking this question. Patrick Gruder and Mario Bachmann wrote in to talk about music. And you know, there's an upcoming episode on why music makes you happier. We're planning that one out. And that one's really important to me because I love music. And I've studied, actually, on how it can make you happier, how it actually affects your emotions. And we're going to talk about that so that you can put together a playlist that enhances your happiness. Okay? So wait for that one. Here's Patrick and Mario's question. "A friend and I were wondering how music plays into boredom in the sense of distraction. We understand how a content-rich podcast distracts the mind during a gym session."

• 38:59Arthur Brooks?

  And I've talked about how it's important, pretty regularly, to work out without headphones so that the non-distraction will give you that shower sensation. When you're in the shower, you get your best ideas. You can actually get that in the gym as well. "They're wondering if music is something they should avoid as well. Music feels less intrusive or distracting, making it harder for us to grasp if music distracts the mind from vital mental processes." Or maybe it helps. What type of music? What role does it play? Now, this really depends. I can't listen to music when I'm working out. And the reason is because I was a professional musician for 12 years. Really, for 22 years, if you count all my growing up. That was all I did was music. And so I'm, I'm, I think of myself as more of a musician, literally, than anything else.

• 39:42Arthur Brooks?

  I know a lot more about behavioral science than I knew about classical music because I've done it longer. But still, it was my formative years. I think of myself as a French horn player. And so the result is I listen to music and I'm listening analytically. If you don't, if you're using the right hemisphere of your brain, the complex, the intuitive side of your brain when you're listening to music, more power to you. That's great. It really depends on you and you have to decide whether or not it's distracting or whether or not it's enhancing the other thing you're trying to do. Holly McCann writes in to the website. My friends say they were raised as iPad kids, having weird habits, like needing to be watching something in order to enjoy meals or being able to fall asleep.

• 40:26Arthur Brooks?

  So Holly's friends believe that they can't enjoy meals or fall asleep unless they're watching something. How does that even happen? And what is living like this doing to them? The answer is it's just a simple habit. It's a simple habit. And so, you know, there's all kinds of things that you can do as a habit that you can't feel like you can go to sleep properly unless you're doing this weird thing because we're habituated. Our brains habituate to something. Those habits, like any other habits, are actually pretty easy to break. You just have to make a commitment and do it. And usually it takes, well, a bad habit like that will probably take about two weeks, maybe a little bit longer before you don't miss it anymore. And you actually not just don't miss it, you like it. Sleeping, for example, is very costly to your sleep architecture. You'll be looking a blue light as you go to sleep.

• 41:09Arthur Brooks?

  It just, if you look at the sleep architecture on a tracker like Whoop or even my Fitbit, you'll see bad sleep. Even if you slept for, you know, if you're in bed for eight hours, you're not going to like what it looks like. Plus, if you're actually, while you're eating, if you're watching something. Like eating in front of the television, even if you're another person, you're not going to get the oxytocin exchange, the bonding that actually neurochemically is supposed to occur while you put stuff in your mouth while looking each other in the eyes and having a conversation. That's the reason people eat together. That's a really important thing to do. And so you're missing out on a lot when you do that. But again, it's a simple habit. This is not something that's set in stone. This is not some behavior that has wired the brains permanently. There's no evidence that that can't change, even in a matter of weeks. It's a question of knowing the truth,

• 41:54Arthur Brooks?

  following the science and improving your life. Thanks, Holly. Well, we're done. Let me know your thoughts at arthurbrooks.com, where you can find all of our resources. You can also write to us. Please like and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, any place where you're watching or listening to this. Leave a comment. We love to read them. We're a continuous improvement to make this show what you want it to be. Follow me on socials, LinkedIn and Instagram, most notably, but other platforms as well. And order The Meaning of Your Life to learn more. Hope you've enjoyed this. Happy vacationing. Happy setting up your vacation. Looking forward to talking to you next week.