(CNN) Howie Mandel never takes a vacation unless it involves work . He's happy to take his wife and kids to Hawaii if he's booked a standup gig there, or the whole family will jet to Orlando for three weeks if he's shooting "Deal Or No Deal," just one of several hosting gigs he holds.

"You know, I don't think we go anywhere where I don't hit the stage at least once or do something, but I'm lucky and I get to go to a lot of cool, fun, neat places. You know, if we go to Hawaii over Christmas, then I'll do a concert there, you know?" Mandel tells CNN. "I don't know if I plan vacations around work or work around vacation, but either way it works out."

The "America's Got Talent" judge and "Deal Or No Deal" host explains that work is the ultimate distraction from the "noise" in his head. He's a notorious germaphobe, suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and explains that time inside of his own head or thinking too much is just not beneficial to him.

"Unwinding is not good for me," he says. "There's too many voices. Just too much noise in my own head."

Mandel, 63, says he lives in the now, and it's his daily observations and interactions that feed him material for his standup. He recently released his first solo comedy special in 20 years, "Howie Mandel at the Howie Mandel Comedy Club," which, says the family-friendly host, is not for the kids.

"[Standup] is my happy place," he says. "For me it's like getting up and going to a party. It seems like a lot, but it's really not a lot. It's not like people who get up really early in the morning and work till the sun goes down, you know, five days a week. I have a lot of free time. You know, I just like [doing it] and this is fun and I have the ability to do it, as far as physically. I think I'm pretty lucky and, I want everybody to be as lucky as I am."

As for "AGT," Mandel says it doesn't even feel like work.

Howie Mandel on 'America's Got Talent'

"It's amazing to me that that's even a job, I'm thrilled to be there," he says. "There are people that save up their whole lives to go out to Hollywood and maybe go to a taping and see a show like that. That's my job. Right. And I still, nobody's more aware of that than I am."

Mandel, who is also hosting "Howie Mandel's Animals Doing Things" on National Geographic, recently launched the Take Cholesterol to Heart campaign to tell his story and help inspire others to speak up about high cholesterol. (He was diagnosed 30 years ago but went off his medication because he didn't like how he felt.) He is now back on a different one and has a clean bill of health.

"[At the time] I'm running seven miles a day, I'm eating healthy, I'm doing, you know, it's this a ticking time bomb, the silent kind, and that's when I got informed what high cholesterol meant," Mandel says. "I didn't know there was a direct correlation between high cholesterol and heart disease, stroke. I did not even think about that. I didn't think I was even close to being a candidate for anything. I didn't think I even knew anybody like that. It turns out it was me and then I got scared and now I'm on my second statin, which is perfect and it's got my numbers under control and I feel healthy. I just want to get the word out there that this is really pervasive."

In order to maintain his many jobs and keep up with his health, Mandel says he also takes medication for his OCD and goes to regular therapy.

So does he ever plan to retire?

"I'd never choose to do that. That would never be by choice," he says. "Right now I'm getting busier, right now it's good. And I live in now."