I lived in Sweden for 5 years. Here are 5 things Americans get wrong about work-life balance.

From time to time, everyone needs to be able to recharge their batteries and have time off from work. Multiple studies have shown that taking vacation improves productivity, lowers stress, and is beneficial to one's mental health.

Many employees throughout the US have paid vacation, but most people have nowhere near five weeks of vacation.

In Sweden, you are guaranteed five weeks, or 25 working days, of vacation. There is something called Semesterlagen, or "vacation law," in Sweden that governs vacation policies. Semesterlagen not only gives employees the right to five weeks of paid vacation time, but also the right to take four of those weeks consecutively during the months of June, July, and August.

No one likes getting sick, and no one likes sick people coming into the office.

Companies throughout the US have varying policies regarding paid sick leave, and often, American workers feel compelled to work through their ailments.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, everyone has paid sick days. However, a new 2019 rule says Swedish workers who take sick days will see a deduction of 20% of their salary for an average work week. For longer periods of sickness, in the US, you might run through your allotment of sick days and be forced to dip into your vacation time. But in Sweden, regardless of the length of your sickness, you will still only get that initial 20% deduction for the first day.

And Swedish employees can take seven consecutive sick days before they need to provide a doctor's notice to prove they are actually sick.

In the US, one would typically use their accumulated sick days in order to care for a sick child. Luckily, Americans are protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act when their child is sick for a long period of time.

While this law protects parents' ability to stay home with their sick children, the act gives the employee the right to 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave in a 12-month period to care for the child. That means that the family can end up in a financially problematic situation.

In Sweden, there is a system in place to support parents with children who are sick. The nationwide VAB policy, which is short for "vård av barn," or "care of child," gives parents the right to paid leave from work to care for a child that is ill.

Just like the rules for parental leave, workers get around 80% of their pay up to $100 per day. They have the right to 120 days of VAB per year. This system relieves families from immediate financial troubles and the parent can stay at home and care for their child without being docked a full day's pay.

Keeping a healthy boundary between free time and work is important for your stress levels and mental well-being.

The boundary between work and free time is, of course, highly dependent on your job position, but at a typical company in Sweden, people will go out of their way not to contact you outside work hours.

For many people I know working in the US, this seems not to be the case. Being contacted outside of work hours and even on weekends is fairly common and is not really seen as a problem, but more as a part of the job itself.

Some people have no problem with that, but it is nice to have a culture in which you try to respect employees' time outside of the workplace. Most Swedish friends I speak with all feel their employers respect their time outside the office and only contact them when it's absolutely necessary.