Vacation is Good for You

Boy howdy am I glad to hear that. Noone has ever needed to persuade me to take a few weeks off each year for vacation, but apparently 25% of Americans need a little nudge. They seem to believe their work schedules are too demanding to allow a little time off for R & R. The Vacation Gap, a study recently performed by Air New Zealand, has found that an overwhelming amount of workers are more productive if they DO take some personal time. Now, I’m sure Air New Zealand is a little biased as a good deal of their profits are derived from vacation travelers but that doesn’t discount the findings. Even if this is shameless propaganda, you can’t argue that you FEEL better after a few weeks without meetings or conferences or bosses.

If you’re trying to convince your company to let you go, here are some of the findings:

The program studied passengers flying Air New Zealand from Los Angeles to Auckland and was conducted by former NASA scientists at Alertness Solutions, who employed equipment and techniques heretofore only used to analyze the effect of travel on astronauts and pilots.

Among the findings is a dramatic 82 percent spike in performance among vacationers, showcasing the highest increase ever documented through objective testing. Even more relevant to corporate America is that the subjects continued to operate at an increased performance of nearly 25 percent even after returning from their New Zealand vacation.

For lots of additional information on the study, visit http://www.vacationgap.com/

By the way, this post is coming to you while I’m lying on the beach in Byron Bay, Australia. I was productive enough to write several posts to cover the time of my much anticipated, much needed vacation. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments, but you can rest assured I won’t be checking my e-mail for at least another week. I’m not one to argue with the experts and time off seems to be good for your health.

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