~Writing Well Wednesday Tip~
Have you taken a vacation yet this year?
If not, are you planning one soon?
A recent survey by Project: Time Off found that even though Americans took an average 17.2 days of vacation in 2017—the highest level in seven years—about a quarter of employees had taken absolutely no paid time off in more than a year.
Even with the improvement, the numbers are still below the average 20.3 vacation days Americans took each year between 1978 and 2000.
That’s not good, because a lack of time off can equate to health problems.
Avoiding Vacations is Bad for a Writer’s Health
According to the famous Framingham Heart Study, men who didn’t take vacations were 30% more likely to have heart attacks than those who did. Women who slaved away without vacation were 50 percent more likely to have heart attacks then those who got away.
In a 2012 study, researchers found that vacations improved mental health and well being, too. Relaxation, enjoyment of activities, and sleep quality all got better while the participants were away. Other research shows that time off improves productivity.
Now, in a recent 2018 study, scientists discovered that if you want to prolong your life, you should be planning regular vacations. Researchers analyzed data from over 1,200 middle-aged male executives born between 1919 and 1934. All had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, like smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol.
One group of men—the control group—went about their lives as normal. The other group—the “intervention group”—received advice every four months on good health habits, like eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and stopping smoking. They also received treatments as needed to lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
Not surprisingly, the men in the intervention group had a 46 percent reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease compared to the men in the control group. But researchers were surprised to find that at the 15-year follow-up, there had been more deaths in the intervention group than in the control group.
They analyzed more data over a longer period of time, and found that the death rate was consistently higher in the intervention group until the year 2004, but then the rate evened out in both groups between 2004 and 2014.
The scientists did some more digging, and found that shorter vacations were associated with the excess deaths in the intervention group. More specifically:
- men who took three weeks or less annual vacation had a 37 percent greater risk of dying in 1974 to 2004 than those who took more than three weeks
- vacation time had no impact on risk of death in the control group
Lead author Professor Strandberg said: “In our study, men with shorter vacations worked more and slept less than those who took longer vacations. This stressful lifestyle may have overruled any benefit of the intervention. We think the intervention itself may also have had an adverse psychological effect on these men by adding stress to their lives.”
How to Create a Truly Relaxing Vacation
The findings of this study and many more show that
- a) stress is bad for your health, and
- b) regular vacations help to reduce that stress, if you go about them the right way.
Indeed, vacations can just add to your stress if you’re not careful. “Poorly planned and stressful vacations eliminate the benefits of time away,” say writers Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan in the Harvard Business Review.
To increase your odds that your vacations are relaxing, try these tips:
- Plan ahead. Decide where you’re going, and what activities you’ll do each day (even if you plan a day to “do nothing”). Make reservations and get tickets before you leave. This will save you the stress of planning once you’re there, and will eliminate those uncomfortable episodes with your travel mates where you all try to decide “what to do.”
- Detach from work. Don’t take work with you. Research has found that those who kept working during vacation felt more “down” when they returned. Go completely off the grid. Use an “out-of-office” supply on your email. Delete social media apps until you return.
- Try something new. You may imagine the perfect vacation as just vegging out on the beach, but learning a new skill, taking a novel adventure, or exposing yourself to something entirely different from what you normally experience in your regular life is more likely to leave you feeling refresh and restored when you get back home.
- Make reservations a year ahead of time. When you return from this year’s vacation, block out the next one on your calendar. If you make reservations, you’ll be even less likely to weasel out.
Have you taken a vacation this year?
Sources
Achor, S., & Gielan, M. (2016, July 13). The Data-Driven Case for Vacation. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/07/the-data-driven-case-for-vacation
Aubrey, A. (2018, August 20). Vacation Days Piling Up? Here’s How To Get The Most Out Of A Short Vacation. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/08/20/639551037/vacation-days-piling-up-heres-how-to-get-the-most-out-of-a-short-vacation
De Bloom, J., Geurts, S. A., & Kompier, M. A. (2012). Vacation (after-) effects on employee health and well-being, and the role of vacation activities, experiences and sleep. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(2), 613-633. doi:10.1007/s10902-012-9345-3
Framingham Heart Study. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/
Reid, D. (2018, June 20). Vacation days taken by US workers hit highest level since 2010, study says. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/09/vacation-use-by-us-workers-hits-highest-level-for-7-years.html
ScienceDaily. (2018, September 19). Take a vacation — it could prolong your life. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180828085917.htm
Strandberg, T. E., Räikkönen, K., Salomaa, V., Strandberg, A., Kautiainen, H., Kivimäki, M., … Huttunen, J. (2018). Increased Mortality Despite Successful Multifactorial Cardiovascular Risk Reduction in Healthy Men: 40-Year Follow-Up of the Helsinki Businessmen Study Intervention Trial. The journal of nutrition, health & aging. doi:10.1007/s12603-018-1099-0
Vartan, S. (2018, January 30). Why vacations matter for your health (and your happiness). Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/why-vacations-matter/index.html