What will happen if your work life and family life are out of your grip? Your stress level is likely to take an upturn. Even after fighting the soaring stress level, if you are unable to strike a balance between your personal life and work life, a number of diseases could attack your health. With the problem still persisting, slowly and steadily, the diseases can control your life.
This may sound scary but this is the most terrifying fact of the lives of many workaholics. However, I certainly don’t have any intention to scare people who have just started reading this. Trust me, when there are problems, there are solutions for them too. You just need to find them!
What is causing the Poor Balance between Work and Life?
Gone are the days when individuals maintained a boundary between home and work. The scene is completely different today. There is competition in every industry. Increasing workload, pressure of surviving the competition and climbing the ladder of success; all these are tempting enough to spend the maximum portion of the day at work. As a result, family life suffers.
In recent times, many young people suffer from at least one serious health problem. The inability, to be more precise, the unwillingness, to lead a healthy lifestyle is the reason many people yield to health disorders so early in their life.
What Studies show?
Work stress is directly associated with heart disease. According to scientists from the German Research Center for Environmental Health, CRP or C-reactive protein is an inflammatory marker and there is a direct link between work and higher concentrations of CRP. Over 950 people were observed in the study conducted by the scientists from Helmholtz Zentrum München (The German Research Center for Environmental Health). Healthy workers who were exposed to stress experienced elevated levels of inflammation. They are more prone to suffer from cardiovascular disease if they lead a stressful work life and an unhealthy lifestyle.
The study emphasized on reducing job strain and following a healthy lifestyle (like, saying no to tobacco and alcohol) to keep heart disease at bay.
What is the Concept of Healthy Lifestyle?
The concept of a healthy lifestyle is not just limited to following a healthy diet and having an eight-hour sleep daily. There is more to it. Spending some quality time with family and friends is also an important part of a healthy lifestyle. But as long as you are engrossed by your job duties all the time, how will you able to do this? Here, an important question turns up.
Which comes First – Work or Family?
Work is the source of livelihood; without family, life is meaningless. When you have family by your side, you have the reason to be happy with the rewards your job offers. Happiness increases when it is shared and sharing it with your family is the best way to do it. So, family should be the first priority and work should not interfere with your personal life.
Handling work and family may not be a simple task but it is not difficult either. Work will always be demanding; your family will always want you to spend time with them. So, how are you going to juggle the two? The following are some tips that may come to your help.
Prioritize your activities – Make a list of your daily tasks, both job-related and personal activities. Determine what you like to do most and what you don’t enjoy doing at all. If there is any task which you are not comfortable with at your workplace, you should talk to your employer for a solution. Performing a task forcefully produces a negative effect on confidence level and productivity.
Say no – So, whenever your project leader asked you to stay late at office to fulfil some additional duties, you have been an obedient child! Till date you have said yes because you have been negligent to your family. But now onwards, make sure you say no. The bitter truth is that the more you keep on working extra hours, the higher will be the expectations. Will the rewards be proportionate? There is no guarantee.
Leave your work life in the office – After returning home from the office, make sure your laptop rests in your briefcase. Pay attention you don’t bring any discussion related to work at the dinner table.
In short, separate your work time from family time to utilize both fully.
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