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When you’re planning a vacation, one of the main points to consider is how long you’ll be going away. Do you go for a long weekend, a whole week or perhaps even longer?According to scientific research, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, there is a perfect length of vacation time that has the maximum beneficial effect on your health and well-being.Researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, set out to explore the effects of vacation length on health and well-being and its relationship to positive aftereffects.So what's the perfect length? Longer than eight days. But there's an interesting point to be made about the frequency of our vacations, too.The study There were 54 participants taking part in the study, who had an average age of 42.5 years and were all employed. This research focused on longer vacations – ranging from 15 to 34 days, with an average of 23 days. Scientists looked at the psychological processes associated with such a long respite from work and how health and well-being developed during and after the break.The volunteers all reported their health and well-being before, three or four times during, and five times after the vacation, based on six factors – health status, fatigue, satisfaction, mood, tension and energy level. The results The experiment found that health and well-being increased rapidly during vacation time, peaking on the eighth day. However, within one week of returning to work, health and well-being had returned to baseline level. The study authors wrote: “Health and well-being (H&W) improved during long summer vacations, but this positive effect was short-lived. Vacation experiences, especially pleasure, relaxation, savoring and control, seem to be especially important for the strength and persistence of vacation (after-) effects. “In short, the development in H&W during and shortly after vacation was independent of vacation duration.” How long should you vacation for? According to the study authors, “the present study makes a contribution to understanding long-term recovery: frequent respites might be more important to preserve wellbeing than the duration of one single recovery episode. "Our results regarding the rapid fade-out of a positive vacation effect also accentuate the methodological importance of on-vacation measures in vacation research.”If you want to get the most from your vacation and feel truly rested and rejuvenated, try to have a break for longer than eight days, and fill your time with pleasurable and relaxing experiences to boost your health and well-being. And, as the authors suggest, it may be more beneficial to take more frequent shorter breaks, rather than one long respite from work.