How big a deal?

Well, I am new to this board and somewhat new to cigars. Here are my questions.
I have a cabinet style humidor. It maintains RH pretty well with a cigar oasis and some home made humidifiers. I live in a pretty dry area and when I open the humidor up to make my selection, I notice that the humidity levels fall sharply (sometimes down to the 56 57 range). They always come back up, but slowly (several hours). How long to the cigars hold their humidity in their leaves? Is this swing in RH really that harmful? Is there a way to avoid this problem, if it is a problem? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

56 isn't terribly low, and a cigar can take a couple weeks to fully adjust to a change in RH, so I don't think you have too much to be concerned about. What RH do you keep them at?

Like P-fish said, its no big deal.

I got a little 20 ct humi to put a weeks smokes in and open the big humidors once a week. That way my storage humidors aren't opened 2-3 times a day.

Thanks guys. Pyrofish, I try to keep the RH at 70%. I have been told that lower is better, but I have found that at 65% they smoke a little too hot and fast. Also, I thought by keeping the RH higher that the sudden drop would be less damaging. Thanks for straightening me out with the info.