An unhealthy addiction to work <http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/02/10/AW238316.DTL>
U.S. workers have fewest vacation days, but have trouble even taking those by Torri Minton, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, February 10, 2002 Joe Robinson calls it "vacation deficit disorder," and he is rallying Congress to prescribe a cure. Three weeks vacation for every worker would do nicely, he says. Robinson, of Santa Monica, wants the Fair Labor Standards Act changed. Every American who holds the same job for at least a year should get three weeks of paid leave, and four weeks after three years of service, he says. Vacation is no frivolous matter, surveys show. It's a matter, in more than a few cases, of life and death. "Clearly, there's a major link between stress and heart disease and depression," said Robinson, who has nearly finished writing a book about his campaign, called "Work to Live." The book is due out at the end of the year. "One study showed that even a week of vacation a year decreased the likelihood of heart attack and heart disease in men aged 35 to 55 by 23 percent," Robinson said. U.S. employees have the fewest number of vacation days in the industrialized world - yet studies show they have trouble even taking those days off. American employees get an average of 13 paid days off a year, according to the World Tourism Organization. But 1 in 6 workers are too busy to actually take all the days off that they have earned, according to an Oxford Health Plans Inc. survey. Medical research, said Dr. Alan Muney, executive vice president of Oxford, links vacation to a lower risk of death. The company sells health plans in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Among other things, the study found: -- Nineteen percent of employees said their jobs make them feel older than they are. -- Another 19 percent feel pressured to attend work even when injured or sick. -- Seventeen percent said work causes them to lose sleep at home. -- Fourteen percent believe their employer makes it difficult to maintain a healthy diet. -- Fourteen percent feel management only promotes people who habitually work late. A study by State University of New York at Oswego found that regular vacations lowered the risk of death by almost 20 percent among men aged 35 to 57. Different research, using data from the Framingham Heart Study, found that frequent vacations cut risk of death by half among women aged 45 to 64. Massive layoffs last year only made it tougher for many employees to take time off. "You can see it on people's faces - the worry, the concern. They -don't know if the other shoe's going to drop," said Pamela Ammondson of Santa Rosa, an author who teaches workshops about taking time out from work. "There are a lot of people now who are really, really worried and they're working just to save their jobs," she said. Add that to the work that is dumped on the remaining employees after downsizing, she said, and you have a lot of overstressed workers. Over the past few years, Ammondson has seen a growing number of overworked employees. "They are just really tired,' she said. "They've lost that enthusiasm. . . . It's to the point of epidemic, I'd say." Ammondson's workshops are based on her book, "Clarity Quest," about "the lost art of the sabbatical." Among the thousands of people who have taken her workshops, Ammondson has observed a pattern of physical symptoms. She has seen too much work and too little vacation lead to depression, fatigue, stomach trouble, overeating, undereating, increased drinking and smoking and decreased interest in sex. Ammondson has experienced some of the symptoms herself. She was so stressed from trying to start her own business while going through a divorce that she developed major gastrointestinal problems, she said. She also started fantasizing about checking herself into a nice, quiet institution. "I used to drive by the state mental hospital and longingly look at the benches," she said. What Ammondson needed, she said, was a good, long sabbatical. But she had bills to pay and employees and customers to take care of. "I couldn't figure out a way to carve out some time," she said. That struggle became the basis of her book. Meanwhile, the events of Sept. 11 seem to have shocked people into at least talking about the need for more workplace flexibility, including paid time off. The pro-vacation movement may have been significantly strengthened by that day. Robinson interviewed several people who "have been pretty rooted in the blind success track," with no time to step back and think of anything else. The attacks, he said, changed many people's relationship to work. Some people told him they are now cutting back on the extra few hours they used to work each night. One man said he -isn't going to work Sundays anymore - shrinking his workweek from seven days to six. Robinson, editor of Escape magazine, had been scheduled to meet with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, to discuss his vacation proposal - on Sept. 12. The meeting, obviously, was canceled. But Robinson, the man behind the Work to Live campaign, pushed on. "There is a lot of interest in this," Robinson said. "We're going to get things back on track this spring." ------- E-mail Torri Minton at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
