Do Americans dislike R&R? Well, that seems unlikely. But we don’t seem to be very good at it.
New economic research suggests that U.S. adults don’t relax much, even on nights and weekends. The economists found that Americans work longer hours and are more likely to work late nights and weekends than their counterparts in other wealthy, developed economies.
On a typical weeknight, more than a quarter of U.S. workers did some kind of work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Relative to 7 percent of workers in France and the Netherlands, that seems like a lot. In the U.K., 19 percent work during weeknights…and that was the closest percentage to us.
When it comes to weekends, one in three Americans, compared to one in five in France, Germany and the Netherlands, was on the job.
There’s a lot one could say about this. Maybe we just love our jobs. Maybe we derive a sense of meaning or value from our work. Maybe we feel poor and need to pay the rent or mortgage. Maybe technology makes it hard to set boundaries around work these days.
Or maybe we’re just not good at giving ourselves permission to rest and relax. If that’s you, consider this your permission.
Economist Daniel Hamermesh, one of the authors of the published research, had this to say in a recent opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle:
“We have driven ourselves to the point where we work more and get less and less for it. Basic economics says that the more you work, the greater the pain of the last bit of work; and the more you consume, the less pleasure you get from the last thing consumed. As a society, we’ve painted ourselves into a workaholic corner of diminishing returns from what we produce and rapidly rising pain of additional work and work at strange times.”
Wow. Take a bite of that and chew it!
We at Urban Mattress do a lot of thinking about sleep, health, comfort, relaxation and living life to the fullest in community. After all, quality sleep is our business! We want our families, friends and neighbors to rest well so they can live healthy, full lives. We want that for ourselves, too.
There’s clearly a connection between relaxation and sleep, albeit not an easily quantified one. If you’re a hyped-up achievement machine functioning on adrenaline, your lifestyle will impact your sleep schedule and ultimately your health—and that’s not rocket science. Research has shown that sufficient R&R, on the other hand, yields more productive work hours.
When we think about quality of life, it becomes obvious that rested life is better than slugging through our days worn out, burned out, tired of being tired. (Let’s be honest: there are far too many Americans who live this way and then brag about it, weirdly. We know; we’re too often among them, but we’re trying to improve.)
Let’s learn to work hard, play freely, and relax fully. It’s all part of living well.