La vacation is too short if we make it last only for the period we have allocated for it. Two weeks, one month. Too skimpy especially this year, in which we feel imprisoned in the shadows of the conflict in Ukraine and the surge in infections – again – of Covid.
The moment of departure can be a cure-all if we turn it to our advantage (photo Getty Images).
But we can try to stretch it, to extend it in the days before it. If we start enjoying it early, we enjoy it more. “The fruits of waiting are mini-emotions that we accumulate” explains a psychologist who studies the mechanism of anticipation, Christian Waugh, professor at the American University Wake Forest.
We connect with our future self and this bridge between today and tomorrow makes us feel better, according to research, it pulls us out of short-term thoughts and broadens the horizons of the mind. We daydream, imagine how beautiful it will be to discover that city or dive into the blue.
People on vacation are known to improve mood, reduce stress and lower blood pressure. But the studies show that the sense of well-being grows even before moving from home, so much so that experts recommend making several short trips a year instead of a single summer period.
Departure is perceived as a reward and planning it is already a pleasure in itself which relieves the fatigue of the last part of the routine. You are less irritable, more smiling.
Enjoy the pre-joy
The Germans have a splendid word to translate a complex feeling such as the slight frenzy mixed with satisfaction in anticipating an event: Vorfreude, the pre-joy.
Indeed, as Heinrich Böll reflected, “if we became aware of the legacy that lies in each term, we would study dictionaries, the catalog of our wealth, and discover that behind every word there is a world.” Pre-joy sets worlds in motion.
For Leopardi, the meaning of things was precisely on the village Saturday, the trepidation ahead of Sunday, which in the end turned out to be disappointing. But pessimism is not a must.
Waiting is a condition of existence, an empty box that everyone fills, and embracing the wait is a way to stir within oneself the happiness of the moments to come.
In Germany, the motto is “Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude”, which could be translated as: “Waiting is the greatest joy”. Or also, freely: to taste is better than to taste.
We no longer know how to wait
However, we live in an era that has made us unable to savor the suspension that is a prelude to planned events. Simultaneity wins. Everything and immediately.
The example is the instant dialogue of Whatsapp, question and answer, in comparison to the messages that were once entrusted to the slow comings and goings of envelopes. Technology evolves to save us timebecause the impression of late modernity is not having enough time, not even to fantasize about the holiday.
And by dint of cutting breaks here and there we find ourselves accelerated and alienated, as the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa wrote. So we don’t know what to do with all that time we have saved and, to escape boredom, we make up for it with social media, Youtube videos, TV series.
We have lost the ability to wait. And yet, it is the waiting that marks the events of life. Even before life, with gestation lasting for nine months. And desire is the child of waiting. “I’m in love? – Yes, because I’m waiting »writes Roland Barthes in Fragments of a love speech.
We go to the doctor’s anteroom, sit at the table in the restaurant while they prepare our lunch, stop in the car at the traffic lights, listen to the pre-recorded voice of the switchboards: “Please wait so as not to lose the priority you have acquired”.
We always wait, we just don’t know how to do it anymore. Instead, we could all just think about fiddling with the cell phone, for the terror of a dead time. The horror vacui. And may it never be that “the priority acquired” is lost. Otherwise, impatience is triggered, nerves on the edge of the skin.
The cerebral pleasure of anticipation
We would have to gain by re-evaluating waiting, which among other things is an important lever in the functioning of the brain. The anticipation of a positive event triggers the so-called reward circuit, crucial in our behaviors.
When we look forward to a food, but also the arrival of a melody we love, inside our head dopamine is released, the neurotransmitter of contentment. The Enlightenment philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who in comedy, had understood this Luck of the soldier writes: «The expectation of pleasure is itself pleasure“.
The mechanism of anticipation is also being studied in medical care, where trust in therapy is a form of treatment. The neuronal circuit of hope was examined through magnetic resonance and it was seen how the anterior brain areas (prefrontal) and the deep ones (limbic system and brain stem) are activated.
Precisely these areas, stimulated by the announcement of something good, produce opioids and cannabinoids that give relief. Substances similar to opium, morphine and cannabis.
How to quell anticipatory anxiety
Naturally, over-investing in a future event can prove to be a boomerang. Those who expect too much from a vacation (and not just from a vacation) risk being disappointed by reality. It sounds like an oxymoron, but we should dream with our feet on the ground.
The flip side of positive anticipation, however, is anticipatory anxiety. “They often happen together within us,” notes the American psychologist Waugh. “Anxiety and excitement are sister emotions. Just think of the mixture that precedes the day of the wedding or the birth. But it is harmful to focus only on the negative part. Research suggests that turning worry into self-encouragement and focusing on the happy aspect is a key to living better. “
It is valid for an exam to be faced, for a business appointment, for the education of children. After all, it applies to the holiday.
More than on the suitcases to pack we should abandon ourselves to the joyful idea of turning off the computer and canceling the commitments. We design without great stress and we think about filling the time before us with images of sun, sea and peace.
Eliana Liotta (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Eliana Liotta is a journalist, writer and science writer. On iodonna.it and on the main platforms (Spreaker, Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcast) you will find his podcast series The good that I want.
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