According to new research, 80 per cent of Australians get a mood boost simply from having a holiday to look forward to.
uncertain
cent → accord → holiday
Almost three-quarters say the anticipation helps them cope with the demands of everyday life.
asserted
them → say → life
I wholeheartedly believe them.
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I → believe → them
A group of girlfriends and I are going to Greece next August.
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group → go → Greece
Nobody has packed a bag (truthfully, we haven’t even booked our flights).
asserted
we → pack → flights
We are months from ordering our first suspiciously expensive waterside cocktail.
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We → order → cocktail
And yet Greece has entered the group chat.
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Greece → enter → chat
Photos sent without comment that everybody understands immediately.
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everybody → send → that
Entire imaginary days have been lived before any of us has boarded a plane.
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any → live → plane
And while there’s joy in every shared piece of information, it does raise the question: how much of the pleasure of a holiday happens before the holiday itself?
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much → ’ → holiday
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
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it → turn → ?
Behavioural and habit expert Dr Gina Cleo says dopamine, the neurotransmitter closely associated with our brain’s reward system, doesn’t come into play only when we get what we want.
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we → say → what
“It’s that anticipatory reward and the brain’s response to the expectation that something good is coming,” she says.
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she → ’ → expectation
“It can almost be as much as getting the reward itself sometimes.
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It → get → reward
Cleo says two to three months before departure tends to be a sweet spot: close enough for a trip to feel real, and yet far enough away to enjoy weeks of anticipation.
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trip → say → anticipation
Keen planners (as I’m beginning to realise I fall into the category of) can stretch the effect much further, with Booking.com’s Travel Happiness Index reporting that 58 per cent of Australians enjoy the planning itself.
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cent → begin → planning
My friends and I appear to be testing the outer limits of this theory.
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friends → appear → theory
Or could we achieve much the same thing by booking dinner next Saturday or filling a Net-a-Porter cart?
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we → achieve → cart
While the basic psychological mechanism is similar, what makes travel different, according to Cleo, is the number of pleasurable stages it bundles together: anticipation before we leave, novelty while we’re there and memories afterwards.
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we → make → stages
A dinner or online shopping stint can give us something to look forward to.
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dinner → give → something
A holiday can occupy our imagination for months.
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holiday → occupy → months
And imagination has one considerable advantage over reality: nothing has gone wrong yet.
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nothing → have → reality
“Anticipation isn’t bound by reality,” says Cleo.
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Cleo → bind → reality
“You get to imagine the perfect version of the trip in your head.”
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You → get → head
It’s excellent news for my rose-coloured-glasses personality.
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It → ’ → personality
In imaginary Greece, the sun shines incessantly, except on that one morning when cloud cover cradles us all through the aftermath of the night before.
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cover → shin → night
The hotels surpass anything we’ve seen on social media, and while no one misses a ferry, in my mind, at least, we’re island-hopping aboard a classic Riva motorboat (one can dream, right?).
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one → surpass → motorboat
Of course, there is a downside to spending months mentally storyboarding the perfect holiday – eventually reality needs to live up to it.
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reality → be → it
The Travel Happiness Index found that while travel is overwhelmingly associated with positive emotions, 19 per cent of Australians also report feeling anxious about it and 17 per cent feel pressure to make the most out of their time away.
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cent → find → time
Cleo says that the trouble starts when a holiday becomes something to optimise rather than experience.
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holiday → say → ?
“The tipping point is usually when there’s zero slack in the itinerary,” she says,” so there’s not much free time or no room for something like a slow morning or a wrong turn.”
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she → ’ → morning
Cue nostalgia for the dog-eared Lonely Planet and not knowing exactly what lunch is going to look like.
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lunch → cue → what
Social media hasn’t exactly helped.
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media → help → ?
The most photogenic restaurant, beach club or spectacular hotel pool tends to command our attention during the planning stage, even though the same research found it was the far simpler pleasures – beautiful scenery, time with the people we love, good food and drink – that contributed to most people’s satisfaction.
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that → tend → satisfaction
Cleo calls it visibility bias.
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Cleo → call → it
We devote disproportionate planning energy to the things other people will see.
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people → devote → things
There’s also the small matter of switching off once we arrive.
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we → ’ → ?
Cleo suggests many of us need two or three days before the work brain properly downshifts, which may explain why a weekend away can sometimes seem to finish just as we have finally relaxed.
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we → suggest → days
She recommends starting the holiday before departure in a less glamorous way: clear the inbox, tell people you’re unavailable and close as many mental loops as possible before leaving.
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you → recommend → loops
“Add a soft landing,” she says.
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she → add → landing
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia
