This is why you suddenly get sick when you finally go on vacation.

leisure time disease

“I was the ideal employee: I never got sick, except on weekends and between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. It’s a special phenomenon that many people seem to be aware of, and as my research shows, it does exist,” says health psychologist Ad Vingerhoets of Tilburg University, who has conducted research on illness for the central government.

Getting sick while on vacation is also called recreational sickness. There are a number of explanations for why this happens while on vacation. One of them is the transition from stress to relaxation.

You worked hard all year, had to keep all the balls in the air with your family and had a busy social life. In short, you were always “on.” The stress you were under caused the production of so-called “stress” hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, which suppress the immune system.

Offline

“Then your adrenaline levels rise to support your physical and mental effort, and they don’t drop to your baseline because you’re going on for so long. Not even when you sleep. This causes your body to become unbalanced and your immune system to become less efficient, leading to serious illness.