Stressed? Don’t Take a Vacation

Getting away may seem like the perfect solution to chronic stress, but the author of a new book says the counterintuitive truth is you’re better off staying home.It’s summer and the sun is shining outside your office window.Starting and running a business is hard work, so it’s no surprise that you may register your stress, check out the weather, and conclude this is a great time to take a vacation.As sensible as this train of thought sounds, science suggests that the chronically stressed may be wrong in thinking that the best medicine is to get on a plane and see someplace new.That’s according to John Coates, author of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk-taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust. He took to Fast Company recently to explain that our hard-wired instincts when it comes to stress may actually often cause us to take actions that make the situation worse.Distinguishing between short-term fatigue brought on less than inspirational tasks and chronic stress, Coates goes on to suggest that when faced with the latter, our natural impulses often betray us. He writes:When we are mired in stress, what we desperately need to do is minimize the novelty in our lives.

Getting away may seem like the perfect solution to chronic stress, but the author of a new book says the counterintuitive truth is you’re better off staying home.It’s summer and the sun is shining outside your office window.Starting and running a business is hard work, so it’s no surprise that you may register your stress, check out the weather, and conclude this is a great time to take a vacation.As sensible as this train of thought sounds, science suggests that the chronically stressed may be wrong in thinking that the best medicine is to get on a plane and see someplace new.That’s according to John Coates, author of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk-taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust. He took to Fast Company recently to explain that our hard-wired instincts when it comes to stress may actually often cause us to take actions that make the situation worse.Distinguishing between short-term fatigue brought on less than inspirational tasks and chronic stress, Coates goes on to suggest that when faced with the latter, our natural impulses often betray us. He writes:When we are mired in stress, what we desperately need to do is minimize the novelty in our lives.

Originally posted here – 

Stressed? Don’t Take a Vacation