Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to be known as the man who paints his face with the American flag and goes to Olympic curling matches and bangs a cowbell, but the original plan was to be “the man who has a tattoo of the American flag on his face and goes to any Olympic competition except for curling, figure skating, or ice dancing and blows a tuba.
The largest boost in happiness comes from the simple act of planning a vacation. In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks.
After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people. How much stress or relaxation a traveler experienced on the trip appeared to influence post-vacation happiness. There was no post-trip happiness benefit for travelers who said the vacation was “neutral” or stressful.”
Surprisingly, even those travelers who described the trip as “relaxing” showed no additional jump in happiness after the trip. “They were no happier than people who had not been on holiday,” said the lead author, Jeroen Nawijn, tourism research lecturer at Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.
The only vacationers who experienced an increase in happiness after the trip were those who reported feeling “very relaxed” on their vacation. Among those people, the vacation happiness effect lasted for just two weeks after the trip before returning to baseline levels.
How Vacations Affect Your Happiness - Well Blog - NYTimes.com (h/t Ezra Klein)
Tatooine (via justinvg) - Great looking, minimalist Star Wars posters.
Minimalist TV Posters (via Boing Boing)
Lost Subway Map - based on locations from the show.
Toy Story 3 trailed in 3D
