GO HOME! The Case for Taking it Easy at Work
By Laura Donovan
It was 5:20 a.m., and I was already late for work. My neighborhood plowman hadn’t yet cleared the road, which was covered in ice and resembled a skating rink, so I glided through the potentially hazardous street in my boots, praying I wouldn’t fall face first like I had the morning before. The journey would have been much simpler had I not gone to bed three hours earlier and been so sleep deprived, but I’d had tons of articles to complete that evening and was determined to maintain my tireless work ethic.
Nearly a year after that blistering cold winter day, I still work beyond my capacity— but have a much healthier and more normal approach to employment. I’m in a profession I love but have adopted the “work to live” mentality and set aside my post-college “live to work” philosophy, as my old habits were unsustainable and detrimental to my health and career, which I considered abandoning altogether as a result of burning out.
Of course, I join pretty much the rest of the nation in working more than eight hour days, covering the weekend shift, and staying late to get ahead. With an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, working folks are lucky to be able to pay the bills, but why do we push ourselves so hard by default?
According to a 2004 report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of annual hours worked by United States employees have been on a steady increase for the past few decades and eclipsed those of many Western European countries. Last month, a Towers Watson Talent Management and Rewards Survey found that of the 316 North American companies surveyed, nearly 65 percent of participants reported that workers have been putting in more hours over the past three years. One in three businesses reported that their employees have been using less of their vacation and personal days off over the same time span. We’re not giving ourselves the restoration period we need to detach from professional responsibilities. Some would call this admirable, but it’s also pretty unhealthy and unbalanced.
How working too much can hurt you and your company
Workaholics can and do endure much worse fates than being scolded by family members for leaving the dinner table to pick up an important phone call. In addition to taking flak from others, workaholics are susceptible to lots of health problems. Many mental health professionals consider “workaholism” a condition that can have both physical and mental effects.
“The stress that goes along with working too much has been shown to lead to substance abuse, sleep disorders, anxiety and ultimately to physical problems like heart disease,” Diane M. Fassel, author of “Working Ourselves to Death,” told the New York Times in 2007.
On the surface, workaholics seem like dream hires, but they may tire or move on to something else quickly, so their habits can have a negative impact on their places of employment.
“In the short run, having employees work extra hours can increase productivity, but in the long run, extended hours can negatively affect employee well-being and retention,” said Laurie Bienstock, North America leader of rewards consulting at Towers Watson. “Employees at many organizations are already suffering from change fatigue.”
Health conditions arise from working too much
Humans weren’t meant to sit hunched over a computer for the majority of the day. “Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to do one thing: move,” Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic told Glamour magazine in 2009. “As human beings, we evolved to stand upright. For thousands of generations, our environment demanded nearly constant physical activity.”
Times have changed since our days of running through forests and over to bodies of water in search of nourishment. A poll by the Institute for Medicine and Public Health found that we spend around 56 hours a week chained to our work desks, behind the wheel of our cars, or in front of the television set. Such a sedentary routine puts us at a greater risk for heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.
In our culture of getting ahead, it’s understandable why so many people overextend themselves and do more than the bare minimum. Putting in a little extra effort isn’t so harmful either, according to research conducted last year by the University College London and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.
As reported by The Guardian, one or two hours overtime had no effect on workers’ health, but three or more hours resulted in a 60 percent heightened risk of coronary heart disease.
“If we’re stuck in the office we’ve less time to relax, get a good night’s sleep, and take enough physical activity, all of which have been found to help reduce stress levels and protect against heart disease,” said Cathy Ross, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation.
Allow yourself to slow down
There comes a point where you must resist the temptation to consistently put in 10+ hour days and weekend shifts. If you finding yourself clocking in so many hours that you don’t have the energy to enjoy your own life or see your loved ones, you may begin to resent your work. Though I loved my first post-college job, I threw myself into it and stopped hanging out with friends, so I slowed down my pace and began to complain that work was too demanding. In reality, I expected more from myself than the others did, and all I needed was to let myself take it easy to have a better outlook on my professional life.
Even if you’re a proud workaholic, devote yourself a half hour or more each day to at least non-work related activity that puts a smile on your face and serves as an escape from office responsibilities. If you love books, designate reading time for yourself at the end of each day. Athletes can wake up early to break a sweat before heading to the office. For a small portion of every day, let yourself engage in something besides work, even if you live to work like so many other people.
Take lunch and coffee breaks at work
If you eat lunch at your desk (you’re not alone— 62 percent of employees do it), step outside the office a couple of times a week to get away from the grind. There’s nothing like an eye-straining laptop screen to diminish the tastiness of a much-anticipated lunch, so stay away from your computer when you want to indulge in good food as a midday reward.
Ross offered another suggestion on dealing with desk jobs: “[T]here are simple ways to look after your heart health at work, like taking a brisk walk at lunch, taking the stairs instead of the lift, or by swapping that biscuit for a piece of fruit.”
Don’t try to be Superwoman!
Because women have more professional presence than ever before in history, it’s easy to try to make up for lost time by juggling numerous tasks, working constantly, and proving to male colleagues that we can do anything. If you try to be on top of your game all the time, you could be unnecessarily hard on yourself the days you cannot or will not overachieve. Rather than beat yourself up for not being perfect each day, give yourself a break a handful of times a month and make no apologies for needing recharge time. If you consistently produce quality work but show up to the office an hour and a half late on one occasion, shrug off the tardiness instead of agonize over how it could make you lose your workhorse façade.
Go home before 6 p.m.
Exceptional performance is not always the result of the number of hours you put in during the day, but the quality of work you complete. If you accomplished a lot one day, don’t feel bad about packing up before your coworkers and being out the door before the flood of commuter traffic. There will be days and even weeks in which you’ll do far more than you signed up for, so head home at your scheduled leaving time every once in a while if you could really use some time to yourself. The Grindstone writer Lindsay Cross said it best in her summertime piece titled “Pardon Me But I Refuse To Work Past 5 O’Clock.”
“All day long, from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm, my job gets to be my main focus,” Cross wrote. “But outside of those hours, I reserve the right to concentrate on my home life. I purposely set up my job to make that possible.”
Laura Donovan is an editor and staffer for Levo.
