10 | EXPRESS | 08.05.2014 | TUESDAY
nation+world Getting out of D.C.
BEN STANSALL (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
One place in America that comes closest to taking a collective break is, ironically enough, Washington.
Europeans, with their 20 to 30 days of paid vacation a year, know how to relax. Above, folks sit on Brighton beach in Sussex, southern England, last month.
Let’s ditch this place HEALTH We Americans work hard. Weekends are more like workends. We sleep with our smartphones. And we think vacations are for wimps. So we don’t take them. Or we take work along with us if we do. But what if taking vacation not only made you healthier and happier, as a number of studies have shown, but everyone around you? And what if everybody took vacation at the same time? Would life be better, not just for you, but for the entire society? Yes indeed, says Terry Hartig, an environmental psychologist at Uppsala University in Sweden. When people go on a relaxing vacation, they tend to return happier and more relaxed. (The operative word here being relaxing, not frenzied.) And those mellow, good vibes, Hartig said, spread “like a contagion” to everyone you come in contact with. Send everyone
ERIC THAYER (GETTY IMAGES)
Sending everyone on vacation at once may be better for society
All of these people celebrating Memorial Day on Coney Island probably headed back to work refreshed, making life better for those around them.
away on vacation at the same time, and that contagion takes off through the population like a viral happiness pandemic. Hartig calls it “collective restoration.” To test his theory, Hartig studied monthly anti-depressant prescriptions in Sweden between 1993 and 2005. He found that the more people took vacations at the same time, the more prescriptions dropped exponentially. Summer, by far, was the happiest time — or at least saw the steepest declines in
Drug cartels linked to killing of mayor in Western Mexico
WASTED TIME
577M
The estimated number of unused vacation days left on the table every year by U.S. workers. And even when they take vacations, many say they take work along with them. All those unused days add up to $67 billion in lost travel spending, according to a recent report by Oxford Economics, an economic forecasting group. (TWP)
anti-depressant prescriptions. It’s no surprise why: Since 1977, Swedish law has mandated that every worker have five weeks of paid vacation every year. And workers can take four consecutive weeks off in the summer. “It’s like there’s this national agreement that it’s vacation time, and work will be left aside,” Hartig said. So instead of working and being distracted, people get outside. They do things they enjoy. The benefits, Hartig said, are huge. Not only is the society happier, but workers are more rested and productive, relationships are closer and people are healthier. One study found that men who don’t take vacations are 30 percent more likely to have heart attacks than those who do. For women, it’s 50 percent. Women who fail to take vacation are more likely to suffer from depression. Europeans, with their 20 and 30 days of paid vacation every year, live longer and spend less on health care than Americans, Hartig said. But that kind of widespread, vacation-induced health and euphoria is unlikely
18 soldiers dead in Azerbaijan-Armenia fighting
WHERE THEY’RE GOING: President Barack Obama is heading off for a 15-day family outing on Martha’s Vineyard. Members of Congress have scattered for August recess, with Marco Rubio lazing by a lake in North Carolina and Lindsey Graham playing some golf, Politico reports. Hillary Rodham Clinton is off to the Hamptons for a little rest. WILL IT WORK? So, come September, will lawmakers’ good moods mean progress on all that unfinished business? Don’t count on it. Politico reports that most politicians are downplaying or outright covering up their downtime so as not to appear as though they’re slacking off. ONE STRATEGY: “Hey, I’m in a race,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, when asked about his summer plans, Politico reports. “I may sneak off for a day or two, but don’t think I’m going to talk about it.” (TWP/EXPRESS)
to hit the U.S. anytime soon. “Collective restoration,” Hartig said, is only possible if the entire population can coordinate time off. And the only way to do that, he argues, is through national policy. The U.S. is the only advanced economy with no national vacation policy. (Unless you count Suriname, Nepal and Guyana.) That’s unlikely to change, but some are trying. The travel and tourism industry has launched the Vacation Equality Project and is pushing Congress for a guaranteed minimum amount of paid vacation. John de Graaf, who has been working on the campaign, said it’s a tough sell in the U.S., where vacation is seen as an “extraneous luxury” of little benefit to anyone. “People don’t experience very much vacation in the United States, so they’re inclined not to understand its value,” he said. BRIGID SCHULTE (THE WASHINGTON POST)
Pope reinstates Nicaraguan priest suspended in the 1980s