Just recently, I planned my final vacation for the year, a three-day trip to visit a friend on the East Coast. I always love to travel and make sure to use up all of my vacation time each year. While I’m lucky enough to work for a company that makes it easy for this to happen, I often hear from friends and colleagues that it is not so easy for them. Over the last decade or so, there has been a trend toward more work and less play. Employees are opting to work more, and more workplaces are discouraging or decreasing vacation time.

According to the Allianz Travel Insurance Vacation Confidence Index, as much as 48 percent of millennials aren’t using the full amount of paid time off they get each year, and 53 percent of Americans have not taken a vacation in the last year.

If you fall into these statistics, you should definitely put in a request for a vacation. Here are three reasons why:

• It’s an investment in you: I love my job a lot. I love my coworkers, my boss and my sources. I truly feel a passion and sense of purpose from the work I do. But I also love to travel and think that it is an important way for me to grow as a person. Every time I visit a new city or country, I get to learn about the culture and the history of the people who live there. Travel, which is how I use my vacation time, is how I learn to expand my horizons, experiences and empathy. I think devoting time to those qualities helps to make me a better person. If you don’t like to travel, you might spend your vacation volunteering or reading books or spending time with family or honing a new skill. A vacation is a time to invest in yourself and make yourself better outside of the office.

• It makes your work better: Taking a break from work can make you a better employee. Coming back from a truly relaxing vacation, even if you just sat at home in your pajamas the whole time, can refresh you and help fight burnout. According to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, employees who take most or all of their vacation time are more productive, higher-performing and more satisfied than people who don’t take vacations.

• It makes it easier for others to take vacation: If nothing else, think of taking your vacation as a duty to your coworkers. If fewer and fewer people are taking vacations each year, it sets the precedent that vacation is not essential in the workplace. According to the Allianz Travel Vacation Confidence Index, 25 percent of millennials felt nervous when requesting time off from employers. If everyone took all their vacation time, it would make it more accepted, and fewer people would feel anxiety around vacations.

By deciding to value vacation time by taking it and encouraging it, we can create a culture where workers are better rested, more productive and more interesting people. The next time you make a request for time off work and get away from the office, I’d love to hear all about it — except during three days in the middle of November. I’ll be on vacation.