This paper conceptualises tourist idleness as a temporary engagement in slow, slothful and entirely unstructured holiday activities. We aim to extend the studies that prioritise the modalities of holidays in nature that encourage simplified, slower, immersive experiences, and which celebrate mindfulness, slowness and stillness as part of a tourist journey. In framing idleness as a relaxing, creative and recuperative holiday practice, we suggest that creating places of otium which encourage ‘doing nothing’ can in many ways enhance tourist wellbeing. To this end, we discuss the significance of spatial, temporal and existential elements of tourist idleness, whilst arguing that this ‘practice’ should be more celebrated in our modern, high-speed societies.
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The necessity for humans inhabiting the 21st century to slow down and take time to carry out daily practices frames the discourse of this research note. We suggest reconceptualising tourist wellbeing through the concept of slow adventure, as a response to the cult of speed and as a vehicle for engaging in deep, immersive and more meaningful experiences during journeys in the outdoors. We suggest that slow adventure has the potential to improve people’s general health and wellbeing through mindful enjoyment and consumption of the outdoor experience and thus bring people back to a state of mental and physical equilibrium. In so doing, we argue that extending the concept to include discussions around the psychological and social aspects of slow adventure is needed.
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The aim of the present study was to find early markers for overreaching that are applicable in sport practice. In a group of elite soccer players aged 15–18, the stress–recovery balance and reaction times before and after exercise were assessed. Overreaching was indicated by an elevated submaximal heart rate during a sport-specific field test. Submaximal changes in heart rate were prospectively monitored by means of monthly Interval Shuttle Run Tests during two competitive seasons. Out of 94 players, seven players with an elevated heart rate of at least one month could be included in the study, together with seven controls, matched for age, body composition, training and performance level. The stress–recovery balance was assessed with the Dutch version of the Recovery Stress Questionnaire (RESTQ-Sport). The soccer players with an elevated heart rate reported a disturbed stress–recovery balance (Mann–Whitney test, P<0.05). An ANOVA for repeated measures of reaction times revealed a significant main effect of time (F 1,12=13.87, P<0.01) indicating an improvement of psychomotor speed. No differences between groups were found. We conclude that soccer players with an elevated submaximal heart rate of at least one month share a disturbed stress–recovery balance, but they could not be distinguished from controls based on reaction time after strenuous exercise.
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