Doesn't this sound very familiar: your daily work stress keeps increasing shortly before a holiday. Before the beginning of the trip, you finish off any remaining correspondence, do the filing and prepare any other projects for your holiday replacement. After all, you want to relax on your holiday and get away from it all – and usually that is only possible when you can be sure that everything is fine at work. However, many people do not realize that stress at work shortly before a holiday increases the risk of illness on holiday. If you are exposed to pathogenic germs during your first few days off, you are much more likely to come down with an infection, as the magazine "VITAL" reports. Because the functional capacity of the immune system decreases when the holiday begins and stress abates. This effect is known to medical professionals as the "open window phenomenon". At the same time, illnesses often last longer than usual during this time and are more serious. Incidentally, the most frequent source of infection is the flight to the holiday destination.