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Get Outta Here! Vacations Are a Serious Matter By Jeanie
Davis Reviewed by
Dr. Dominique S. Walton Sept. 21,
2000 -- Grab the car keys. Check a travel web site. Whatever it takes, get outta
there. Get away from work. That annual family vacation could save your life. A
new study shows that people who take annual vacations are less likely to die
young -- especially from heart disease. The message
is clear, study author Brooks B. Gump, PhD, MPH, tells WebMD: "Don't skip
your annual vacations. We found that people who reported taking no vacation for
five years were at a much higher risk of heart disease and [death] further down
the line." Gump is assistant professor of psychology at the State
University of New York at Oswego. Gump analyzed
data from a nine-year study of nearly 13,000 men -- all between the ages of 35
and 57 -- who were at high risk for heart disease. All completed a lifestyle
questionnaire, but in analyzing the data, Gump specifically focused on answers
to one question: "Within the last 12 months, have you experienced a
vacation?" He found that
13% of the 13,000 men had not taken vacations. "Those who took regular
vacations every year had a lower risk of death when compared to those who
skipped their vacations," Gump says. Of those who died, 30% were related to
heart disease. The findings were published in the September/October issue of the
journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Another
published study -- the Framingham Heart Study -- looked at the health effects of
vacations in women and found a similar effect, Gump tells WebMD. "There was
a significant association between infrequent vacationing and increased incidence
of [heart attacks] or death due to heart disease." Another study has shown
that men who developed psychosomatic illnesses were less likely to take
vacations than other men. The value of
vacations lies in the change of pace itself -- getting your mind off daily
worries. "It's taking time out from the everyday, relentless
stressors," says Gump. "Even anticipating a vacation can ease stress
levels. It removes anticipated threats, provides a period of what we call
'signaled safety'. Anticipated threats are known to have adverse effects as
great as -- if not greater than -- the threat itself." Vacation rids
us of the bad habit of what he calls 'vigilance,' Gump tells WebMD. "On
vacation, you can let your guard down. You can stop worrying about what could
happen." Also,
vacations have their unique, restorative powers. "It's those
health-protective effects from social support of family and from exercising
more. Those things are particularly helpful if done in the context of no
stress," he says. But a true
vacation, Gump tells WebMD, means truly leaving the office behind. "Bring
along your pager or cell phone, and you won't get the full benefit of the
vacation. You're constantly on guard for potential stress." In fact, what
psychologists call rumination -- those circulating, stressful thoughts --
"can extend the effects of stress. Ruminating while you're running defeats
the health benefits of the exercise," says Gump. "Studies
looking at acute stress reaction show that people who are under a lot of
'background stress' -- constant stress -- react more to the acute stressors that
happen every day," he tells WebMD. "They would be at higher risk for
[heart] disease. We also know that background stress causes poorer health
behaviors, too. They're eating more fatty foods, drinking more, have higher
cholesterol levels, smoke more." A vacation
can give a stressed-out worker some sense of mastery over his universe -- and
that in itself brings relief, says one psychologist. "A lot
of stressful things in the work environment are chronic, and mostly people don't
have control over them," says Steve Jex, PhD, author of Stress and Job
Performance. "If you have a boss you don't like, there's nothing you can do
about it. The only way to get relief is to get away. Get out of that environment
for awhile. That may be the best thing for you." Jex is also an associate
professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. And at least
one cardiologist is adding "take a vacation" to his advice to
patients. Stress reduction -- in whatever form it takes -- significantly reduces
risk of heart disease and death in those individuals who are at risk, says
Laurence Sperling, MD, medical director of preventive cardiology at the Emory
Clinic in Atlanta. Sperling reviewed the study for WebMD. © 2000 WebMD
Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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Why is it that a man wakes up in the morning in
a bed he timeshares with his wife, rides
to work in a timeshared carpool, works
in a timeshared office building, goes
home and watches a television that
he timeshares with his family, and takes them all on vacation at timeshared hotels.
then
he refuses to purchase a timeshare unit, says
a timeshare unit cost too much, and
continues to vacation at a timeshared hotel room at three times the price? If
you believe in spending your money wisely, invest in a timeshare unit today.
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