Treat your weekends like a vacation

SALT LAKE CITY – It’s common to take a vacation every once in a while, but what about during the weekends? How can we treat our weekends like a vacation?

In the latest Let’s Get Moving with Maria podcast episode, host Maria Shilaos spoke with Cassie Holmes, Professor of Marketing and Behavioral Decision Making at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and Author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most, to learn how making the most of our weekends can greatly benefit us.

Taking vacations is associated with greater happiness.

Holmes has done research on this topic and found that those who prioritized time for a vacation reported feeling happier and less stressed.

It’s common to think that taking a vacation pulls you away from work. However, her research shows that people feel more engaged with their work when they return from a vacation. It also increases job satisfaction, which plays a key role when it comes to overall life satisfaction.

Despite there being many benefits of taking a vacation, Americans tend to be bad at taking advantage of it.

“We’re actually one of the only industrialized countries that doesn’t have legally mandated paid vacations. Not only do we get less vacations, we don’t take them when they’re given to us,” Holmes said.

How can we take more vacations, especially during our weekends?

Holmes noticed that her research participants spent less time doing chores, more time staying in bed in the morning, and more time dining.

“What was interesting is that it wasn’t those shifts in how people spent their time that really drove the effect on happiness, it was actually their mindset,” Holmes said.

It was more about being in the present, which made them enjoy their time more and return to work happier.

Listen to the full episode below to hear the rest!

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