are 10 times more likely than men to escape from daily stress by organizing a closet (11 percent to 1 percent), and three times more likely to go shopping (32 percent to 11 percent), talk on the phone (NAPSA)—Thenext time you feel overworked, you maybeinterested to learn that nurses (55 percent), teachers (44 percent) and homemakers (48 percent) were recently ranked as the top three most-overworked professions in the country. After all, nurturing for a living—while admirable— can often be a thankless, draining and an utterly frustrating job. Surprisingly, neighbors (40 percent) were ranked highest on the list of people from whom U.S. adults most need to escape. In fact, more people wanted to escape from neighbors than even their boss (34 percent) and their immediate family (spouse/partner 32 percent; child/children 31 percent). These and other salient facts were uncovered in a recent study commissioned by Princess Cruises to help kick off the Help Someone Escape Completely contest in celebration of its 40th anniversary this year. Everyone needs a vacation periodically to help them leave behind their everyday routine and responsibilities, from annoying neighbors, piles of debt or nosy in-laws, to a challenging job, changing diapers or even just the general stress of daily life. Unfortunately, all too often, the people who need such an escape the most are the ones who are not necessarily in a position to take one...whether the reason is time constraints, finan- cial challenges or just personal circumstances. The Help Someone Escape (30 percent to 10 percent) or read a trashy novel (12 percent to 4 percent). Moreover, women are Completely contest is designed to help give these people the impetus they need to “make their escape.” From now until August 31, 2005, people can nominate an especially deserving person in their own lives to win a seven-day cruise to either the Caribbean or the Mexican Riviera. To underscore the important anniversary milestone, the cruise line will select 40 winners from among the nominees. Full contest details can be found at www.princess.com/escape, where nominators can tell their story using a maximum of 500 words. Winners will be announced in October 2005. However, until the winners are announced, the nominees will just have to continue finding their own ways to escape the stress of their daily lives. And what’s the best way for them to do that? According to the Escape Completely study, that might depend upon their sex. Results showed that women twice as likely as men to consider “quantity of comfort food eaten” as an indicator that their stress level is high (43 percent to 20 percent) and four times as likely to feel that way about chocolate (24 percent to 6 percent). Fortunately, more than 60 percent of respondents to the survey also said that their ideal vacation escape is either on a beach (23 percent), a tropical island (22 percent) or a cruise (16 percent). So chances are excellent that, if they win, nominees will be more than happy to stop organizing their closets in favor of a week long cruise in either the Caribbean or Mexican Riviera. Annoying Personal Habits of Others That People Most Want to “Escape” Talking loudly on their cell phones in public places (58%) Interrupting people all the time (54%) Tailgating (52%) Driving too slow in thefast lane (51%) Bragging (48%) Bringing more than 10 grocery itemsto the “10 Items or Less” lane (28%)
