Demanding jobs that give employees little control over their work increase the risk of heart disease, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says. The data will ring true for anyone who has savored an extended vacation. The last time Poirier vacationed for as long as two weeks was two years ago on Cape Cod. ''I felt like a new person,'' she says. She ran in a seven-mile road race and just kicked back. Sometimes you need to walk away for 10 days or two weeks to see all the things you've done right and all the things you've done wrong.
Some bosses make the mistake of forcing employees to cancel vacations.
One executive of a Midwestern nonprofit says her bosses axed her planned hiking vacation with a friend earlier this year after funding from corporate members shrank. She moved her trip ahead a couple of months, but her bosses said no again. She canceled again, losing her deposit and disappointing her friend, who is going without her. She isn't alone. A study last fall for Oxford Health Plans of Trumbull, Conn., of 632 workers nationwide found one in six were too burdened at work to take all of their vacation time.