Because the holidays are more necessary than you think

Introduction to translation

A vacation is not a gift or a reward, it is something that you should get, and according to much research work in multiple areas within psychology, it goes beyond just being an "enjoyment opportunity", to affecting your productivity and ability to continue to do your work, and we haven't talked yet about Adverse mental health effects if you don't get it every once in a while.

Dear reader, the holiday is more important than you can imagine, and in this report, the mental health specialist in the workplace, Dr. Camellia Patterson, explains the importance of the holidays.

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Americans work on average at a higher rate than almost anywhere in the world. The validity of this saying applies to industries, jobs, and at all levels and levels, but it soon became clear that this does not necessarily mean that they spend longer hours at work, but rather it boils down to the whole issue during vacations, which are significantly lower.

A 2016 study by the Institute for Labor Studies (an institute that provides support for labor issues through research and studies in all areas of business) found that Europeans work, on average, 19% fewer hours than their American colleagues, and the same study found that the main reason for this The difference is how many vacation days there are in Europe. This conclusion leads us to the following question: How much vacation time do Europeans enjoy?

The United States, which does not impose statutory paid vacation days, is an isolated country in the developed world. A study conducted by the Center for Economic and Political Research found that employers in France must provide 30 days of paid leave, in addition to covering the costs of these vacations for their employees.

In Spain, the minimum paid vacation is 25 days, in addition to 14 days of public holidays.

But the situation is different in the United States, when employers in America provide paid vacation, it takes less time, and often employees do not get it in full.

What is interesting is the finding of a study conducted by the American Travel Association in 2018 on American workers, where the results showed that workers accumulated 705 million days of unused vacation in 2017, which indicates an increase of 662 million days compared to the previous year.

On the surface, the American work ethic may seem great, but the truth is that the numbers do not support this assumption, as there is a lot of evidence indicating that the lack of vacations harms employees and institutions, and if the matter is not limited to this extent, it may go further and reduce productivity American organizations and their ability to compete in the global market.

If that's not a good enough reason to start taking vacations seriously, here are four more reasons why you might be interested in vacations.

Increase your creativity and stimulate collaboration

If you're thinking like most leaders, you'll probably wonder how much mandatory paid time off will cost your organization, but in fact, it probably won't cost you anything, but rather, it could do you more good.

In 2017, Neil Pasricha, a Canadian writer, entrepreneur, and public speaker on positivity, and Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimpliFlying, a leading aviation strategy company, collaborated on an experiment in which the company decided to force its employees to Going on vacation, warning them that if they communicate with the office while on vacation via email, WhatsApp, Slack, or any other communication system, their vacation will not be paid.

After the experiment, they asked managers to rate employees' productivity, creativity, and happiness before and after the furlough experience. Fortunately, their findings were encouraging, according to Harvard Business Review. Creativity rates increased after the experiment by 33%, happiness increased by 25%, and productivity improved by 13%.

Pasricha and Nigam's findings are in many ways consistent with the principles underlying the concept of "flow" by American psychologist Mihaly Chixentmihaly, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University, and flow is a highly focused state of mind that increases productivity. The psychologist believes that reaching peak performance always requires taking some time to rest and recover completely.

Positive effect on your mental health

The overwhelming majority of research indicates that vacation time positively affects mental health, as a 2018 study, based on a large sample of 3,380 male and female workers aged 45-52, found that for every ten days of paid leave, women’s depression decreased On average, by 29%, and the most prominent results appeared on custodial women. These women experienced a 38% decrease in depression rates for every 10 additional days of paid vacation.

Another study published in 2018, conducted on a smaller sample of 40 male and female managers, found similar results. The results showed that “one short-term vacation away from work” has significant, positive and immediate effects to overcome feelings of stress, tension, and feelings of recovery. And achieving psychological safety, and the study also discovered that the positive effects can last for 30 to 45 days after the leave.

And your physical health too

In addition to the benefits that vacation brings to improving mental health, there is also a lot of research that indicates that vacations are good for our physical health as well, but these benefits depend on what you will do while on vacation (such as going for a walk, or taking a vacation to play golf).

Taking advantage of your vacation in this way can lead to weight loss, and reap benefits for the heart and blood vessels, and research also indicates the serious consequences that you will face if you decide to forgo vacation, or just take short vacations.

In 2017, a Norwegian longitudinal study (longitudinal study: a research strategy characterized by repeated observations of the same topic, and the study can last for years) of 2,741 people found that shorter vacation periods were associated with a higher body mass index (BMI) (a mathematical value used to estimate an average weight), and was also associated with higher levels of coffee consumption, deteriorating individual health, and worse, shorter annual vacation periods were associated with higher levels of mortality, and strangely enough, the study discovered that taking shorter vacations during middle age leads to deteriorating overall health in old age.

In a related context, we also find evidence that regular vacations can reduce the risk of accidents while working in some professions (such as taxi driving).

Vacations reduce nerve loss and exhaustion

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently included "exhaustion and nerve loss" in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), and although it is not classified as a medical condition, it is now recognized as a "work-related phenomenon".

The World Health Organization explains that burnout is a syndrome caused by chronic stressors at work that employees have not been able to successfully manage.

The World Health Organization has linked burnout (nerve loss) to three dimensions: first, feeling depleted of energy or extreme fatigue, second, being distracted and wandering away from work, and finally, feeling negative or cynical about one's job, along with a decrease in one's professional competence, and vacations also appear to lead A major role in preventing us from falling prey to burnout or loss of nerve in the workplace.

One 2019 study based on the opinions of 1,115 oncologists found that fewer vacation days resulted in higher rates of burnout and lower job satisfaction, and another recent study, which also focused on physicians, found a similar finding. Taking vacations is crucial, as it recharges one's energy to be more productive when they return to work."

But the experimenters note the “necessity to separate from work while on vacation,” which means not answering work emails, receiving any phone calls from patients, or looking at office schedules and patient records.

And that brings us to our last point. If you want your team to realize the full rewards of going on vacation, they should be encouraged to take vacations that enable them to disconnect from the world and really relax, but one point you may miss sometimes is that the benefits of vacations diminish when we try to do too much of things in a very short time.

In other words, you might be able to tour eight countries in seven days, but you probably won't get the best results for your mental and physical health during that tour.

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This article is translated from Psychology Today and does not necessarily reflect the Medan website.