Part 3:
19. C
Soon I’ve filled up my basket with all kinds of things – whether I
actually need any of them is irrelevant.
20.E
Getting up around seven isn’t easy when you’ve been up till two the
night before, but somehow I never manage to log off until then.
21.B
I just don’t feel right if I’m not working on my fitness level, and the
possible long-term effects of that are beginning to concern me.
22.D
It was on all the time in my parents’ home and it’s like that here in my
own flat. Usually the same channel, too, because to tell the truth I’m
totally hooked on the same kinds of series.
23.H
It’s always my intention to set off in plenty of time, but somehow there
always seems to be something that holds me up… Then I end up literally
running to wherever I’m going, always the last to turn up.
Give Us a Break - from Holidays
1. WARNING: Holidays can damage your health. Psychologists believe that many of the millions of
Britons returning to work this week would have been better off staying at the office instead of taking
their annual break.
2. Increasing evidence that holidays can cause harmful stress rather than provide welcome rest and
reinvigoration is to be scientifically tested later this year.
3. Researchers from the University of Manchester’s institute of science and technology plan to attach
telemeters, small instruments that measure stress intake, to a selected sample of holiday makers before,
during and after their yearly break.
4. Kerry Cooper, professor of organizational psychology at the institute, is even more determined to go
ahead with the project after taking his two children to Disneyland on a study tour in the United States
last week.
5. ‘I’m shattered. I’m exhausted,’ he told the Sunday Times from Lost Angeles. ‘It’s been very stressful
indeed; so much so that I’m looking forward to a business breakfast tomorrow.’
6. Cooper maintains that even the most smooth- running holiday procedures are not unable to produce
stress simply by being a change in routine. Whether the stress builds up to health- harming levels
depends, he says, on your personality, on the relationship within the family, and on the type of holiday
you take.
7. Type A people, the more dynamic, goal- oriented, hard- driving, take far longer to unwind than the
more relaxed less ambitious type B group.
8. A two- week holiday would often not relax a type A person who would spend the time worrying about
work he could have been doing at the office, the cost of the holiday, or whether their home is being
broken into. As one holiday- maker put it: ‘I spent the first part of my holiday worrying if I locked up the
house properly, and the rest of the time worrying if it’ll still be safe when I come back.’
9. One reason why the hazards of holidays had until recently escaped the attentions of stress researchers
is the bland response most people give when asked how they enjoyed it. 55
10. ‘People have invested so much time and energy into a holiday that if they had a bad time they won’t
admit it, even to themselves,’ said Vanja Orlans, of the stress research and control centre at London
University’s Birkbeck College.
11. Professor Cooper pointed out that family tensions, kept at bay during the rest of the year often erupt
when the family is thrust together incessantly.
12. The vacation itself may cause conflicts through each holiday maker preferring a different sort of
activity, or inactivity, the ‘museums versus sandcastles’ syndrome, added Vanja Orlans.
13. Even those who said they had a successful holiday came back worried. ‘I was depressed at the
thought of going back to work.’ Said Lynn Hatley, a part- time secretary in a garage, ‘When I walked in my
front door I felt a pain right round my head as all the pressures piled back on me.’
14. The stress specialists debunk the notion that a good holiday necessarily helps people start work with
renewed enthusiasm.
15. ‘People who come back from a terrific holiday are often disorientated and can’t work well,’ Orlans
said.
16. She added that the fixed yearly holiday period has big drawbacks: people may postpone dealing with
things that are getting them down at work or at home, believing the holiday will be the cure.
17. Cooper believes new research could help people provide guidelines for people to design the right
sort of holiday for their personality, family structure and work position. Some may need passive ones,
others active, some short, some long. Going on holiday when work stress is affecting you, or taking
several short ones during a year, often meets the individual’s needs better.
Times newspapers Ltd
