5 Why do people take holidays? The usual reason given is ‘rest and relaxation’. How many other reasons can you think of? How restful and relaxing are holidays really?

6 Read the following text and find out:

a. what recent evidence suggests about the effects of holidays;

b. what reasons there might be;

c. what the results of further research could be.

Give us a break from holidays

by Paul Martin

WARNING: Holidays can damage your health. Psychologists believe that many of millions of Britons returning to work this week would have been better off staying at the office instead of taking their annual break.

Increasing evidence that holidays can cause harmful stress rather than provide welcome rest and reinvigoration is to be scientifically tested later this year. Researchers from the University of Manchester's institute of science and technology plan to attach telemeters, small instruments that measure stress intake, to a selected sample of holidaymakers before, during and after their yearly break.

Kerry Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at the institute, is even more determined to go ahead with the project after taking his two children to Disneyland on a study tour in the United States last week.

“I'm shattered, I'm exhausted,” he told The Sunday Times from Los Angeles. “It’s been very stressful indeed; so much so that I'm looking forward to a business breakfast tomorrow.”

Cooper maintains that even the most smooth-running holiday produces stress simply by being a change in routine. Whether the stress builds up to health-harming levels depends, he says, on your personality, on the relationships within the family, and on the type of holiday you take.

Type A people, the more dynamic, goal-oriented, hard-driving, take far longer to unwind than the more relaxed less ambitious type B group.

A two-week holiday would often not relax a type A person who would spend the time worrying about work he could have been doing at the office, the cost of the holiday, or whether their home is being broken into. As one holiday-maker put it: “I spent the first part of my holiday worrying if I locked up the house properly, and the rest of the time worrying if it'll still be safe when I come back.”

One reason why the hazards of holidays had until recently escaped the attentions of stress researchers is the bland response most people give when asked how they enjoyed it.

“People have invested so much time and energy into a holiday that if they had a bad time they won't admit it, even to themselves,” said Vanja Orlans, of the stress research and control centre at London University's Birkbeck College.

Professor Cooper pointed out that family tensions, kept at bay during the rest of the year, often erupt when the family is thrust together incessantly.

The vacation itself may cause conflicts through each holiday-maker preferring a different sort of activity, or inactivity, the 'museums versus sandcastles' syndrome, added Vanja Orlans.

Even those who said they had a successful holiday came back worried. “I was depressed at the thought of going back to work,” said Lynn Hartley, a part-time secretary in a garage.

“When I walked in my front door I felt a pain right round my head as all the pressures piled back on me.”

The stress specialists debunk the notion that a good holiday necessarily helps people start work with renewed enthusiasm. “People who come back from a terrific holiday are often disorientated and can't work well,” Orlans said.

She added that the fixed yearly holiday period has big drawbacks: people may postpone dealing with things that are getting them down at work or at home, believing the holiday will be the cure.

Cooper believes new research could help provide guidelines for people to design the right sort of holiday for their personality, family structure and work position. Some may need passive ones, others active, some short, some long. Going on holiday when work stress is affecting you, or taking several short ones during a year, often meets the individual's needs better.