Just in time for the weekend, cough or headache report: “Leisure Sickness” is the name of the phenomenon, in which diseases are followed. You can find out what you can do about it here.
After stressful weeks, the long -awaited vacation is finally there – and you suddenly lie flat with flu. Or you want to fully enjoy the well -deserved weekend, but then the headache reports. The fact that you always get sick when you actually want to enjoy relaxation, vacation or leisure is often not a coincidence, but a phenomenon called Leasure Sickness (German: Leisure Disease).
What is Leisure Sickness?
There is hardly the pressure from the job, study, household or other stressful commitments from the shoulders, report coughing, runny nose, headache or muscle pain. Leisure Sickness hides many people in need of relaxation or the weekend.
For the study “Leisure Sickness: exhausted instead of recovered” at the IU International University, 19.3 percent of the more than 2000 surveyed stated that it is at least always or often always or often on vacation or on vacation. The phenomenon is therefore known at 71.9 percent of employees: inside. According to study author Stefanie André, professor of health management at the private IU, headquartered in Erfurt, the “leisure disease” is not part of the officially classified diseases. Nevertheless, the phenomenon is associated with symptoms of illness, as the survey shows.
Already in 2017, the opinion research institute YouGov examined on behalf of the International University of Bad Honnef Bonn how many people are actually affected by Leisure Sickness: 22 percent of the more than 2,000 respondents stated that they were already sick of Leisure Sickness in their lives – each: R fifth. Little has changed according to the study of the IU International University, which was carried out in 2025: According to this, every: R Fifth employees feel: R regularity in this pattern.
The term “Leisure Sickness” comes from the Dutch psychology: inside ad Vingerhoets and Maaike van Huijgevoort. In their view, this phenomenon is a psychosomatic illness that arises from the fact that those affected, mostly “workaholics” with a high sense of responsibility, cannot switch from work into leisure mode.
Others: Inside, the cause of Leisure Sickness sees the immune system, which is negatively influenced by continuing stress. According to the technician health insurance, the body releases stress hormones in challenging situations that help to master the efforts energetic. According to the immune response, Kortisol Netdoktor inhibits possible infections.
But when the stress falls off, the body also drives a gear and reduces hormone production. The immune system is no longer suppressed, but works at full speed again and reacts to pathogens as usual. The result: the body has to deal with colds and other infections again.
Missing recovery in private work above all younger
About 40.1 percent of the respondents in the study of the IU International University fully agreed with the statement that their private life does not offer sufficient relaxation in order to meet the requirements at work. This statement is particularly common (50.5 percent) among younger employees up to 25 years.
“The picture shows that younger generations in particular have a different concern than older people,” says André. She explains the result that the young respondents also design their free time with passive scrolling through social media and streaming series and films. The representative study shows that people with active and sensible leisure activities have experienced “leisure sickness” less frequently.
Overtime and accessibility in leisure time
In addition, the younger group feels more committed to being available outside of working hours. The proportion of consent to this statement was 42.6 percent for those under 25, and it was 33.5 percent for all respondents. In addition, 80.6 percent of all respondents stated to work regularly. “The results show that accessibility outside of working hours, high workload and a lack of recovery are clear risk factors for symptoms of illness on days off,” says André.
Between January 24 and February 6, 2025, the University Iu interviewed 2,004 people in Germany between 16 and 65 years of age, which are in an employment relationship, representative of age and gender.
So you can prevent Leisure Sickness
Freecue illness is therefore not through your free time, but through the stress before the resting phase. (Current stress, on the other hand, really has something to do with how to spend your free time.) To prevent Leisure Sickness, you should do something about it in exhausting times.
Stressexpert: Interior advisory tips:
- Do not try to work through everything the last days before the vacation. Short breaks are important so as not to get your stress level up.
- Consciously end the working day and make it clear that you can still do tasks the next day or after the weekend.
- Get to know your limits and say no when new tasks are brought up to you for which you no longer have capacities.
- Learn how you can deal better with pressure pressure. We often cause ourselves more stress than necessary because we are putting more and more our own expectations of our performance.
- According to NetDoktor, even on vacation, it can help you to impose some rules on to create internal distance to work. Therefore, avoid taking the work cell phone on vacation in order to work on one or the other work email.
With material of the dpa.
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- Distress and Eustress: There are these types of stress
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- 7 types of relaxation: Expert explains how relaxation can be done better
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