a shift occurred when the Romans started viewing leisure as a way of recuperating in preparation for more work, a transition that accelerated significantly during the Industrial Revolution.

He recommends using mindfulness to help savour leisure experiences. “It expands your subjective perception of time (i.e., you feel like you have more of it) and enhances memory formation, which means you’ll not only feel like your vacations lasted longer, but you’ll remember them a lot better.”

Participants from India and America, both nations with overwork cultures, endorsed the belief that leisure is wasteful more strongly than participants from France, which has social norms, “less restrictive of enjoying life and having fun”. In fact, while Malkoc estimates about 30% of the population endorses the ‘leisure is wasteful’ belief on... See more

The ability to enjoy terminal leisure (as an end in itself) is a stronger predictor of wellbeing than enjoyment of instrumental leisure, the study showed.

Economists call the idea that we must maximise our time off the intensification of the value of our leisure time.

the way we perceive and value leisure has changed, problematically.

Two-thousand years ago, concepts of work and leisure were associated with servitude and freedom, respectively. In Ancient Greece, explains Aeon, most of the labour was outsourced to slaves, while wealthier parts of society pursued other activities. “Leisure was an active state of mind. Good leisure meant playing sports, learning music theory,... See more

“our ability to purchase and enjoy goods and services has risen much more rapidly than the amount of time available for us to enjoy them”. This pressure manifests in our decisions. “We feel like we want to have the best bang for our buck and minutes,”

New research shows that we judge future positive events as both farther away and shorter than negative or neutral ones, leading us to feel like a holiday is over as soon as it begins.