US employees get on average per year 9 days paid leave and 6 paid holidays – despite the fact that the US is the only advanced economy in the world that has no paid leave law. European workers, for comparison, get in minimum 20 days of paid leave in addition to paid holidays. In my native country Austria, workers can get even up to six weeks of paid leave plus 13 holidays.

In the US, full time employees and those with a higher income are more likely to get paid vacation days than part-time and low wage workers. And despite having on average only nine days of paid vacation, roughly a third of employees with vacation benefits don’t take all of the vacation days they receive. Many believe that management perceives it negatively if they take vacation. A typical fear in these days of high unemployment is that workers are afraid that they may get replaced if they don’t give 110 % and therefore they rather forego on the well deserved time-off. About 25% of those, who do take vacation, stay connected with their company by checking work email or taking phone calls from the office while on vacation. About one third of employees admitted in an Expedia.com survey that they feel guilty about taking time off.

They shouldn’t – because it’s not only in their own interest if they use their vacation days to relax and refresh. There’s also a benefit to the employer: Workers who don’t get a break will become exhausted and burned-out over time. They are no longer able to perform to their full potential. They are also at risk for depression and other health issues, which may end up to cost the company more than the vacation days. On the other hand, workers who come back after a break with new energy and new perspectives and ideas will be more productive.

Therefore, talk to your employer about your vacation needs and how the company can even benefit from it. Plan ahead and talk to your co-workers about your vacation. Ask a co-worker to cover for you if necessary and offer the same favor in return. Final advice: don’t take work with you and avoid checking emails. It’s quite unlikely that your office will fall apart just because you take a few days off.

And with these lines, I say “Good bye” for two weeks. I will be on vacation in Austria!

Christiane is a Life and Career Coach. She also teaches psychology at a community college in Massachusetts. You can reach her via her website http://www.coach4u.net or email her.

If you are like me, then there is always too much to do and never enough time to do it all. In consequence, many of us are controlled by their daily “to do list”.

On a weekly basis, how much time do you have left for some fun in your life? If you don’t know for sure, maybe you will find the work-life balance calculator useful that I recently found on cnn.com

Do you belong to the lucky ones who still can put in overtime? Well, as it turns out now, it may be good for your paycheck but not as good for your psyche.

According to a recently published study by Norway researchers, people who put in more than 40 work hours per week have a higher risk for anxiety and depression.

The researchers compared about 9,000 people, who work 40 hours or less with 1,350, who worked regularly overtime. “Results: Overtime workers of both genders had significantly higher anxiety and depression levels and higher prevalences of anxiety and depressive disorders compared with those working normal hours.” (Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, http://www.joem.org/ )

According to the United States Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov, )
full time worker spend just under 43 hours at work per week. In 2006, about 18 % of full time workers put in more than 50 hours per week. Currently, about 3 % of the workforce has a part time job because they can’t find a full time job or their companies cut the work hours because of the economic downturn and about 5 % of the workforce holds more than one job.

According to studies, the majority of people have dreams about their work. In one study about 70 % of those, who dream about their job, said that they even have found solutions to work-related problems in their dreams. 

Opinions now vary as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

While dreaming about work may be just the normal response to the fact that we spend most of our day at work and with colleages, it could also be seen as manifestation of too much stress and inability to shut off.

Scientists don’t even know for sure, why we are dreaming. Sigmund Freud called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious mind”. This idea became the foundation for countless of books about dream symbols and how to interpret dreams. Other researcher doubt that dreams have a deeper meaning. According to new research we seem to consolidate memories in the REM-phase of sleep. This is also the phase when most of our dream activity is happening. Allan Hobson, professor of psychiatry at Harvard medical school, explains dreams as the result of more or less random brain activity while the cognitive control centers are shut down. Therefore, it wouldn’t make much sense to search for meaning in our dreams.

Anyway, whether dreams have a meaning or not, there are many testimonials of people, who are saying they had the best ideas while asleep. I would love to have such dreams, because I always think in the morning that I didn’t dream at all.