Take a holiday from work and live longer
WANT to have a long life? Besides leading a healthy lifestyle, taking at least three holidays a year between your work schedule seems to be the key, especially for men, a study suggests.
People with shorter holidays worked more and slept less than those who took longer holidays, which took a toll on their health and affected their life span.
Compared with those who took more than three weeks, men who took three weeks or less annual leave from their regular work schedule were found to be 37% more likely to die early, the study showed.
“Don’t think having an otherwise healthy lifestyle will
compensate for working too hard and not taking holidays,” said Timo Strandberg, Professor at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
“Vacations can be a good way to relieve stress,” he added.
The study, presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Cardiology in Germany, included 1 222 middle-aged male executives, and were randomised into a control group or an intervention group.
The intervention group received oral and written advice every four months to do aerobic physical activity, eat a healthy diet, achieve
a healthy weight and stop smoking.
Men in the control group received usual healthcare and were not seen by the investigators.
Shorter holidays were associated with excess deaths in the intervention group.
Holiday time had no impact on risk of death in the control group.
“However, our results do not indicate that health education is harmful.
“Rather, they suggest that stress reduction is an essential part of programmes aimed at reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases,” Strandberg cautioned. – IANS