Did you know that American employees leaving 460 million vacation days used? Repeat after me: 460 million days of unused vacation time! I mean how many years of vacation is that anyways? When I read that article in Marketing Vox magazine, which revealed that Americans only take 14 days of vacation per year, I immediately remembered the post I wrote a year ago after spending a summer in Europe.

You can still read it here: If you want to age well, you need to take vacation Every time I read stories of North Americans being chained to their desks or being slaves to their smartphones for the sake of productivity, I always think these stories are completely insane … and then I take stock of my own life and realize that I’m as North American as they come and I DO NOT take enough time off and I surely don’t take the breaks I should take.

I always find this difficult because as a beauty and aging-well expert, I always tell my readers to eat well, slow down, sleep and take breaks from life, but here I’m the one researching a new beauty trend at 1 a.m. or running multiple new product launches in one day.

As you might have read in my previous post, I’ve decided to be very proactive in my pursuit of a more balanced life because I know it’s the only path to true happiness, fulfillment and aging well. I’ve said it before, you can buy one of the most expensive products on the market: Best-selling and most expensive serums, but that’s just not enough.

Spending more money on products while having a crazy-busy life or never taking enough vacation will not help keep wrinkles or worry lines at bay. Nope, you’ll only end up spending an obscene amount of money on “stuff”, but you’ll see very little results.

The interesting thing about the article in Marketing Vox is that this tragedy of not taking enough vacation time is not a new trend, they’ve been reporting this for eight consecutive years. That means that for almost one decade now, most Americans are doing their mental and physical health a disservice by NOT taking time away from the grinds of the 9-5 (which is really more like 8-7 for most employees … if not longer).

Why do North Americans feel guilty about taking proper vacations?

*  I doubt many Europeans feel guilty about taking  their six to eight weeks of vacation and I can tell you first hand that no shop keeper in many European cities feels guilty about putting a “gone on vacation – back in September” sign in front of their doors.

* In fact here are the vacation stats of other countries:

“Great Britain has a two-day increase over 2007, with 26 days, and Germany, Spain and France all have increases of one day, receiving 27 days, 31 days and 37 days, respectively. Employed workers in the Netherlands and Austria are awarded an average of 28 days in 2008.” — Marketing Vox (you’ll notice how France boasts 37 days of vacation per year and France is still one of the richest countries in the world). Canadian are only slightly better than Americans with 17 days of vacation per year, but that is more than half of what the average French takes away from work.

The study goes on to explain that 38 per cent of women felt guilty about taking time away from the office and that men were more likely to cut out the 9-5 grind by taking two weeks off, while women didn’t. I find that mind blowing given all the responsibilities most women have at home. It’s really no wonder so many women feel completely burnt out and spend most of their lives feeling exhausted.

Taking a vacation is good for your mind, body and soul! A vacation allows you to recharge your batteries and just be in a different state of mind. It’s true that a lot of us find it challenging to get all we need done before a vacation, but once we are away it doesn’t take long to let go and enjoy the time off.

One or two weeks away from work will give you back a lot of that stamina that erodes with the daily pressures of life. The conclusion here should be an obvious one … you need to take vacation time and you should take as many days as you possibly can away from work.