Get this: a 9-year study reported in a medical journal found men age 35 to 57 who took annual vacations were 21% less likely to die young than non-vacationing males and 32% less likely to die from coronary artery disease. By comparison, high cholesterol as an isolated factor increases the risk of death from coronary heart disease by only 1% while high diastolic blood pressure raises the risk only 3%.
You read it right. For all the noise about lowering your cholesterol or blood pressure, taking annual vacations is significantly better medicine. Read the full report here.
The conclusion is obvious: if you want to lessen your chances of dying young stop worrying about having bacon and eggs occasionally or an ice cream cone and instead take more vacations!
Our consulting experience backs this up. Agency people who regularly pause to recover from stress are usually more successful than those whose automatic response to pressure is to work even more frenetically.
You've probably had the experience yourself. The harder you push the more things get screwed up. Your wheels spin and your tires smoke. But if you have the guts at the moment of peak anxiety to walk confidently away and spend some time recovering, you know that coming in fresh the next day will mean you'll be twice as effective in half the time.
It makes sense. High performance athletes pulling off incredible feats always schedule rest time to rejuvenate and replenish their energy and prowess. And we all know that breakthrough ideas often occur in the shower or while jogging. . . when your brain is at ease.
I know what you're thinking about now - no way can you afford to let your guard down and take time off. You, O Indispensable One, are relentlessly alert for both danger and opportunity. . . and you got to this point in your life because you know stress is table stakes when it comes to success, right?
Well, you may be interested to hear about a phenomenon health psychologists call "vigilance for threat." It's when people overly concerned about threats to their health are more likely to experience harmful stress to the heart than those concerned but not preoccupied with things like cancer or eating junk food.
This most certainly applies to being overly concerned about your business: is the next fax going to be a client resignation? Will your top account manager stroll in to announce she's deserting for a competitor? The health experts say too much threat vigilance, even at the subconscious level, will turn you into a walking nervous tick. . . with a time bomb throbbing in your chest. And yet we boast about working 60+ hour weeks and spending more time in the Red Carpet club than at home.
Common sense tells you that nonstop sprinting in a business like ours, which constantly requires fresh clear thinking, can't be productive. There's got to be time to rest and recover. Yet you and I both know people who actually brag they haven't had a vacation in years. It's another manifestation of 'mine's bigger than yours.'
But it's not a smart way to do your best. Look at the creatives - they need to recharge their batteries frequently. As do account planners and strategic thinkers who require perspective and context in order to make sense of disparate facts and trends.
It's even worse if you're running the place; being on unrelieved red alert has overwhelmed many sturdy people. Though I dislike the term, ours truly is a 24/7 business - we think about work most waking hours, weekends included. The old line about advertising making young people old and old people scarce is true.
Perhaps we need to pay attention to the Latin roots of the word 'vacation': freedom, exemption from. So when you 'vacate' you can't call in, bring paperwork, or check your e-mail (our latest societal addiction). Ever had a vacation ruined by a phone call?
The Europeans are ahead of us on all this. The Germans get 18 days off by governmental requirement and the French get 30. Here in the U.S., guess how many vacation days are mandated by law. Zero.
The message is clear. Taking regular vacations to relax and experience freedom from daily stress is more important to your physical and mental heath than laying off the butter and salt.
If you want to run your business with vigor and freshness - and be around a while longer for the important things like for instance seeing the Red Sox win the Series again - than you've got to give yourself the gift of vacating.
