ALPHA FEMALE: Summer holiday - relaxation or stress?

In order to decompress from a stressful job, I feel that you need two consecutive weeks of holiday. Maybe this is why Americans are so stressed and Europeans - comparatively - more relaxed.

Many Americans get only two weeks' vacation a year and it is often frowned upon to take them consecutively. In London, the expectation is that you will take two consecutive weeks over the summer. If you don't take two weeks' holiday, people think you are at best odd or at worst inconsiderate, as your remaining vacation days need to be taken into account throughout the rest of the year. Holidays are timed to coincide with your client base - the Scandinavians go off in July, the French in August.

As was highlighted in the Jérôme Kerviel affair, many in trading (and some controlling functions) should be required to take their holidays. This makes it harder to hide 'rogue positions' and allows inaccuracies to come to light. Perhaps this will now be more actively enforced.

Assuming you do take a holiday, what do you do with it? This is a time to get away from the rigours of daily life and reconnect with your family and friends. But do high powered, highly skilled people really do nothing on holiday? Do they know how to switch off?

My vote is no. People who are successful in the finance world are rarely those who can sit still for long on a beach towel. Much as we like to think we can spend time on a romantic beach with a book doing nothing, after a day or two it becomes boring. Itchy fingers start - and out come the mobile phone and Blackberry.

Even those who attempt to have a quiet holiday will have their share of stress. Stuck in a traffic jam on your way to Cornwall can feel like five hours of hell. Or, assuming that you aren't in the league of flying business class with your family, the stress of flying in the back of the plane with toddlers in tow may make you wish you were at work and not on holiday.

Some younger or single people will go on adventure holidays. I had colleagues who took parachuting lessons, went on cycling trips, or skiing. For them, this was relaxation.

In my experience, most people's holidays fall somewhere in the middle. They go somewhere to relax but end up scheduling their days to keep busy. It's all about keeping the adrenaline going - but voluntarily.

Anneke de Boer is a former managing director of Morgan Stanley's fixed income and debt capital markets business in London. She retired in 2006.