Work-life balance has been in the news a lot recently and we’re starting to ask questions about the effect it’s having on our lives. Work hours have increased steadily over the last couple of decades and it’s leaving a lot of people burned out. It’s easy to go through life without realizing that anything is wrong because most of us just think that’s the way life is nowadays, stress is just something you have to deal with. But that’s the wrong attitude to have because poor work-life balance could be having a serious effect on your health. If you feel like every day is a struggle and there just isn’t enough hours in the day to get things done, you’re probably working too hard. If you can’t remember when the last time you had some time off is, you’re working too hard. If that sounds all too familiar, these are some of the ways that your work life could be damaging your health
Weight Gain
Obesity is a huge health problem worldwide and one of the major reasons that it’s getting worse is because we just aren’t active enough. When you’re sitting a desk all day, your body isn’t burning off many calories at all. The longer you spend in the office not doing any activity, the more likely you are to gain weight. Your eating habits are also likely to be bad if you’re working constantly. Grabbing an unhealthy snack at your desk instead of stopping for lunch and eating ready meals instead of cooking proper meals because you’re getting home so late will all add to that weight gain and before you know it, you could be very overweight. You can’t do much about it while you’re in the office but take a break to walk around every now and again and try to fit in some weight busting exercise as often as you can.
Addiction
People have a very skewed view of addiction and they don’t think it’s something that would happen to somebody like them but that’s not the case. More often than not, people develop an addiction because they’re using drugs or alcohol to manage their stress. Having a drink after a long day at work might not seem that bad but if every day is a stressful day and you end up drinking every night, you can soon become dependent. If you’re worried about your alcohol intake, you should look into health recovery centre rehab facilities before things get out of hand. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it won’t happen to you because it easily could.
Mental Health Issues
High stress levels can quickly turn into more serious mental health issues like depression and anxiety if left unchecked. You might just put it down to exhaustion from working so hard but often low feelings are a symptom of something worse. The only way to negate the effects of stress is to make sure that you’re not working long hours and you’re taking holiday days fairly regularly.
Modern working practices are more demanding than they’ve ever been and it’s having a big impact on your health.
These are major issues to keep a watch for in our lives. Unfortunately the ones who really need it aren’t going to see it or do anything about it in most cases. But hopefully if enough people write about it then more will take notice.