It used to be normalized. It was called a sabbatical. The first company I ever worked for had mandated sabbaticals every 5 years. It was six weeks and you couldn't just add it to your vacation days, you had to take the six weeks all at once. Everybody felt fully refreshed after taking the six weeks off. Plus, their standard work week was 35 hours per week, 7 hours per day. Being a start up we did have periods during the year where we worked considerably longer, but those would be for 2-3 week periods a couple of times per year. This was back in the 1980's. Like I said, this definitely used to be part of our work culture.