Why can't I relax on vacation, even after the first few days?

Because relaxing on vacation is a process, not a switch. One study tracking vacationers found well-being kept climbing for about a week before leveling off, so a still-wound-up day two doesn't mean something's wrong, it means your nervous system hasn't finished downshifting yet.

Is it normal to feel sick or low-energy right when vacation starts?

Yes, it's common enough to have a name: researchers call it 'leisure sickness.' A study of Dutch adults found people who struggled to adapt to unstructured time, especially those with a high need for achievement, were more likely to feel sicker on vacations and weekends than during workdays.

What's a quick way to actually switch off once you're there?

Name whatever's still running through your head in one sentence, the inbox, the itinerary, the thing you forgot, then settle it with a few rounds of the butterfly hug: cross your arms, tap each shoulder slowly left-right for 30 to 60 seconds, and repeat for 3 to 5 rounds.

Does checking work email during vacation actually undo the benefit?

Research on psychological detachment suggests so: people who mentally stay engaged with work during time off report less recovery and more exhaustion than people who genuinely disengage, even when both groups are equally 'on vacation' by the calendar.

Is bilateral stimulation the same as EMDR therapy?

No. EMDR is a structured, eight-phase trauma therapy delivered by a licensed clinician; bilateral stimulation is one component of it. Used alone, like the butterfly hug on a trip, it's a narrower wellness practice for everyday tension, not a treatment for any diagnosed condition.

When does not being able to relax on vacation point to something bigger?

If it happens on every trip, doesn't ease up even after a week away, or you can't stop thinking about work no matter how far you travel, that's more consistent with chronic stress or burnout than an off day, and worth a closer look, possibly with a professional.

Can’t Relax on Vacation? How to Actually Switch Off

You can’t relax on vacation by deciding to: your nervous system needs a few days to downshift from work mode, and checking email or running through packing lists keeps it in “still on duty” mode. A short bilateral-stimulation reset, like the butterfly hug, gives your body an actual signal that it’s safe to stand down.

You landed two or three days ago. The work you were sure you’d left behind is still running somewhere in the background: half-drafted replies, a mental list of things to check when you’re back, a body that hasn’t quite believed the trip is real yet. That’s not a personal failure to enjoy time off. It’s closer to a timing problem.

Why doesn’t your body relax the moment the vacation starts?

Arriving somewhere doesn’t flip a switch. Organizational psychologist Sabine Sonnentag has spent years studying what actually helps people recover from work, and her research keeps landing on the same factor: psychological detachment, actually disengaging mentally, not just physically leaving the building. People who keep replaying deadlines and rehearsing tasks in their head don’t get the same recovery benefit as people who genuinely detach, even once both are sitting on the same beach (Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2012).

For a smaller group of people, that gap between “still on alert” and “supposed to be relaxing” shows up as an actual physical crash. Researchers have a name for it: leisure sickness. A study of more than 1,800 Dutch adults found about 3% reliably felt sicker on weekends and vacations than on workdays: headaches, fatigue, sore muscles, cold-like complaints. The strongest predictor wasn’t the trip itself. It was difficulty adjusting to unstructured time, paired with a high need for achievement and a strong sense of responsibility toward work (Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 2002).

Most people who can’t relax on vacation aren’t getting sick from it. But the same underlying pattern, a body used to running in “on duty” mode with no practiced way to power down, is playing out on a smaller scale.

Why do the first couple of days feel like nothing’s changed?

Because, biologically, not much has yet. One study tracked employees’ health and well-being before, during, and after vacation and found it doesn’t spike the moment a trip starts. It climbs gradually, and among people whose vacations averaged three weeks, it didn’t peak until around day eight, then dropped back toward baseline within the first week of returning to work (Psychology & Health, 2011).

If your trip is a week or shorter, you may be heading home right around when your body was finally catching up. That’s not an argument against taking vacations. It’s a reason to stop treating day one or two as a verdict on the whole trip.

What’s an actual way to switch off, step by step?

You can’t out-argue a nervous system that’s still on alert, but you can give it something more specific than “just relax.”

Name what’s still running. One sentence is enough: the inbox, the flight home, the thing you forgot to tell a coworker. Saying it out loud or writing it down gets it out of the back of your mind without requiring you to solve it from a beach chair.
Settle it with bilateral stimulation. Bilateral stimulation (BLS), the slow, alternating left-right input at the core of EMDR therapy, is built for exactly this kind of low-grade, won’t-quit mental noise. The butterfly hug, a self-administered technique developed by EMDR clinicians (EMDRIA), is the easiest version to do anywhere, a hotel room, an airport gate, a hammock:
1. Cross your arms over your chest, one hand resting on each opposite upper arm.
2. Let whatever you named in step 1 sit loosely in mind. No need to solve it.
3. Tap left, right, left, right, slower than a resting heartbeat, for 30 to 60 seconds.
4. Pause for a breath, notice what shifted, and repeat for 3 to 5 rounds.

A 2013 meta-analysis of 26 studies found this kind of alternating rhythm reliably lowers how vivid and urgent a held-in-mind thought feels while you’re tracking it (Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2013). You don’t need one specific worry for it to help, either: a 2025 study found bilateral stimulation lowered general autonomic arousal, the body’s background alert level, even in people with nothing particular they were processing (BJPsych Open, 2025). That diffuse, hard-to-name restlessness is usually the real shape of “can’t relax on vacation.”

If keeping your own rhythm feels like one more thing to manage on a trip, EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, can run the alternating pattern for you, audio tones or a moving on-screen target, from the web app, free for 7 days. It’s a way to practice bilateral stimulation on your own time, vacation included, not a treatment for stress itself.

When does this need more than a vacation reset?

If getting through the airport or the first stretch of travel is its own source of static, staying level through a travel day is worth doing before you’ve even landed. If the restlessness isn’t really about vacation, the packing, the logistics, and other people are all fine, but a body that won’t settle no matter the setting, our page on discharging that buzz tackles it more directly. And if it’s specifically your job pulling at you wherever you go, our page on EMDR and work stress looks at what the research says when work is the identifiable source.

Pay attention if this isn’t just a slow first day or two: it happens on every trip, doesn’t ease up even a week in, or work stays loud no matter how far you’ve traveled. That pattern is more consistent with chronic stress or burnout than an ordinary adjustment period, and a short reset won’t resolve it by itself. Our guide to stress and burnout goes deeper into what that looks like and what actually helps.

So, how do you actually switch off on vacation?

Not by deciding to, and not the moment you land. Give your body the few days research says it actually needs to catch up to where you already are. In the meantime, name what’s still running instead of pushing it down, and settle it with a rhythm your nervous system already recognizes. You didn’t fail at relaxing, you just started the clock on the wrong day.