We Americans average 13 days of vacation a year. That’s 312 hours. Divide 312 by 365 and you could come to the conclusion that Americans spend more time in the bathroom than they do taking a vacation. Compare 13 days to the Italians’ average of 42 days a year, a Frenchman’s (or woman’s) 37 days or the 35 days taken by traditionally workaholic Germans. Even Canadians take twice as much vacation as we, on the average.

Furthermore, the pressure is on to take fewer vacation days, as the economy worsens and the competition for jobs increases. It is easy to threaten a worker with losing his/her job, without making the overt statement that would land an employer in trouble. Working people know this and respond by working harder than ever.

In addition, it has long been an understood maxim of the workplace, that if you want to promote, you have to prove yourself a team member by working every day, and working overtime unpaid. Illegal? Surely, but reality isn’t always consonant with the law.

Yet now, more than ever before, workers need to take a break. A real break, not just a day or two off to get some work done on the house or a deep spring cleaning. Vacations to alleviate stress are a necessity, not a luxury. Men and women who work at the high pace required to climb the ladder of success (or just hang on to what they have) are at higher risk for heart disease and heart attacks.

Oh, and that “vacation” you took with your cell phone and laptop handy for those business calls? It doesn’t qualify as a vacation unless you really, truly get away from it all, psychologically, emotionally as well as physically.

Let’s see a show of hands. How many of you have taken a real vacation in the last 10 years? Thought so.