4 Reasons Why Vacations Make You Live Longer

Get Your Life Back in Rhythm

4 Reasons Why Vacations Make You Live Longer Wouldn't it be great if the more vacations you took, the longer you lived? Having just returned from a family trip I'd like to think that this week away added years to my life. In a landmark study, researchers found that the more holidays you take, the longer you live. In this article, I discuss four reasons why vacations make you live longer. Vacation Longevity Study In this study, researchers recruited 12,338 people who were at high risk for a heart attack. Over the next nine years, they found something exciting. If you want to live a long life, you need to take a lot of vacations. Interestingly, the reason why these people lived longer was that vacations somehow protected them from heart problems. Indeed, those taking the most vacations lived 17% longer and were 29% less likely to have serious heart troubles. 4 Reasons Why Vacations Make You Live Longer To explain the life-extending benefits of vacations, these researchers came up with four possibilities. 1. Vacations Allow You to De-Stress Really? Perhaps this is because I have four strong-willed children. In my experience, time away can be more stressful. Everything from sleep deprivation to the various delays can make travel hard. Perhaps the magic lies in the fact that it is a different kind of stress. In my case, rather than the pressure of the operating room or being on call for hospital emergencies, it is now the stress of moving a large family from point A to point B and making sure my two-year-old doesn't get lost or injured in the process. When it comes to stress and the heart, I have learned that you can't ever eliminate stress. The only people without any stress have all passed away. Whether or not stress causes you an arrhythmia or an early cardiac death all comes down to how you perceive your stressors. Perhaps this helps to explain why any vacation related stress might be a good thing. 2. Vacations Increase Time with Family and Friends Spending more time with friends and family may be one of the healthiest things we can do for our heart. Indeed, studies show that your social life may be a better predictor of longevity than either smoking or obesity. Sometimes it takes a vacation to wake us up to what is most important in this life. 3. Vacations Increase Physical Activity Most people live their lives going from one chair to the next. We sit for breakfast, sit in our cars, sit at work, sit in our cars again, and then sit to watch TV at night. Sometimes we need an enjoyable vacation to shake things up and get us a bit more active. In my case, vacations offer the chance of a long workout. And, as you know, long workouts can be challenging to come by during a typical workday. Physical activity from time away could be yet another reason why vacations make you live longer. 4. You're Working Fewer Hours If nothing else, getting away means you aren't usually working. And if taking a vacation makes it so that you avoid overtime then it may be good for your heart. For example, many studies have shown that putting in more hours than the typical workweek significantly increases your risk of atrial fibrillation. As a recovering workaholic, vacations help me remember the importance of creating memories that my children will remember for the rest of their lives. How to Vacation Regularly on a Budget Everyone's idea of the perfect vacation is different. Rather than just settle for one big annual family getaway, we try to spread out many budget-friendly mini-vacations over the course of a year. Our goal is to try and do something, even if it is just a one-night getaway, on at least a monthly basis. Staying a couple of nights with old friends or family members can be another budget-friendly vacation. Our kids love packing their sleeping bags and hanging out with their cousins. Even business-related travel can be a great excuse to take all or part of your family along with you...