Why You Still Can't Relax on Holidays

Originally shared in Tuesday Notes on March 31, 2026.

There's a very specific moment that happens on holiday. You're finally there. The place you were looking forward to. The beach is beautiful. The weather is perfect. Everything looks exactly like it should.

And yet, somehow... you're not fully relaxed.

Your body is there. But your mind is still catching up. You check your phone. Think about something small. Feel slightly restless for no clear reason.

And then comes the thought: what is wrong with me? How am I not relaxed right now? I'm literally on a beach.

(Admittedly, slightly offensive to the beach)

We tend to think relaxation is something that comes from the outside:

Change the environment, feel better. Remove stress, feel calm.

But your nervous system doesn't work like that. It doesn't respond to where you are.

It responds to whether it feels safe enough to let go.

And safety, for your brain, is not the same as logic. You can be in the most peaceful place in the world, and still feel slightly on edge.

Because your system is used to: being alert. Thinking ahead. Managing things. Staying in control. So when you suddenly remove all of that, your body doesn't instantly switch to calm.

Relaxation isn't just the absence of stress. It's a skill your nervous system has to relearn.

There's also something else happening underneath this. Your brain has two main modes.

There's the focused mode: the one you use when you're working, concentrating, solving problems. That's the one we tend to reward.

And then there's what neuroscientists call the default mode network: the state your brain enters when you're not focused on anything in particular. No input, no task, no scroll. Just your own thoughts, wandering. For a long time this was considered the brain's idle state. Wasted time.

But it turns out it's doing some of the most important work your brain does: integrating experiences, connecting ideas, processing things you haven't had time to digest. It's linked to creativity, self-reflection, and memory consolidation.

The thing is, it can only fully activate when you actually stop giving your brain something else to do. Every time you reach for your phone in a quiet moment, you're not just passing time. You're interrupting a process your brain was trying to run.

Which means that stuffy, slightly uncomfortable feeling when you're lying still with nothing on (no music, no podcast, just silence), that might be your brain at the edge of something useful.

That's why it often takes a few days on holiday to actually feel like you've arrived. Why the first days can feel oddly restless. Why you reach for your phone without thinking. Why doing nothing feels... uncomfortable.

Your system is adjusting:

From doing, to being From controlling, to allowing From anticipating, to experiencing

And that transition isn't always smooth.

Maybe that's the part we don't talk about enough. That slowing down can feel just as unfamiliar as speeding up. That peace can feel strange when you're used to being in motion.

So if you find yourself on a beautiful beach, slightly unable to relax, nothing is wrong with you. You're not doing it wrong. Your system is just learning that it's allowed to let go.

(Currently writing this from the Dominican Republic, where the beach is indeed perfect... and my brain this morning went "but should we be doing something??")

---

Tuesday Brain Snack

Your nervous system prioritizes familiar states over objectively "better" ones, so even if calm is healthier, your brain may initially resist it, simply because it's not what it's used to.

This is also why the default mode network can only do its best work when you stop giving your brain something else to focus on.