Why is it so hard to take a vacation?

We live in a society that is always *on*. It's easy to see, with the hustle and bustle of cities and the never-ending access to news, social media and entertainment on our smartphones, it can be more difficult than ever to simply disconnect.

In grad school, there is no 9 to 5. You are expected to be in the lab whenever the research needs you to be there, including early mornings, nights, and weekends. When you're out of lab, it's the constant barrage of papers, study sessions, emails, and the general dread that if you take some time off, you may fall behind. Some may say that this is simply what entails academia and research, especially in the increasingly competitive funding system; though realistically if we want to address the major increase in mental health issues among graduate students, we need to implement a culture of work-life balance.

It's been shown that taking vacation is correlated to improved productivity, lower stress and better mental health. However, when on vacation it's often a silent understanding that you will still be "on" via email, potentially catching up on readings, or working on various presentations for the upcoming weeks. Why is it that as graduate students we have such a difficult time detaching ourselves from our work? I would argue it's at least in part because we allow our work to be intertwined with our self-identity. What would we be if we weren't students? Researchers? Academics? To take a break from work is to take a break from reality.

I believe that sometimes, a break from reality is exactly what we need.

We need time to decompress, to relax, to engage interests outside of lab. We need time to spend with our support networks, our family, friends and roommates. We need time to do chores, take care of homes and our relationships, to exercise. Most importantly, we need time to figure out who we are outside of lab, to separate our personality from our academic self-identity. To be better scientists, we have to be people capable of existing in the "real world", not just the lab.

And sometimes this means, that despite what the nagging voice in the back of our head says, we need to take a break. Whether that be a weekend of no reading, a weeknight of not checking emails, maybe even using the vacation time allotted in our contracts without thinking about work.

While obviously when the research needs us to be in lab until midnight, we will do that to get data. But nights like those need to be the exception, not the rule.