There’s nothing wrong with the dedication to your career and work-life; in fact, it’s very admirable of someone to be so engrossed and devoted to their livelihood, especially if it means they’re getting just satisfaction and recognition for their efforts. Plus, despite the hardships and challenges that will inevitably come your way, love for your work always manages to triumph over any issue or problem that you may encounter in your career.
However, all that devotion to your work-life becomes self-destructive if there’s never an off-switch for the stressors, and they start eating up all the other aspects of your life from self-actualization, family, personal hobbies, and so much more. And regardless of the objective and financial advantages of prioritizing your work and livelihood, it should never come at the cost of your sanity and well-being because taking a break is just as important in the grand scheme of things.
Working Yourself To The Bone Makes It Impossible To Get Anything Done
You see, while crunch hours and burning the midnight oil to meet deadlines appear good on paper because you’re meeting your quota and expectations, working yourself to the bone is just not sustainable in the long term. As a result, even though you still can keep things up now, constantly pushing past your set limits will lead to diminishing gains that prevent you from getting anything done at all.
- You’ll Feel Weaker And Have Less Energy: Firstly, one of the immediate effects you’ll feel from too much stress and workload is the onset of weakness and sluggish feeling that makes you wish you didn’t get up for the morning. And while others believe a cup of coffee ought to do the trick, even a delicious meal of shrimp grits won’t help you get any better. So, all this lack of energy will backfire and cause you to complete less work than the day before.
- Your Brain Is Cluttered And Can’t Think Straight: In addition to having less energy and motivation, constantly surrounding your mind with stress and heavy workloads worsens your ability to think straight. As a result, you will find it a lot more difficult to complete assigned tasks and work activities that require analysis because your brain is just outright cluttered. Sure, you may still finish them by the end of the day, but it will often consume twice as much time than prior.
- Compromising Your Mental Well-Being: Lastly, one of the worst effects of too much stress and lack of time to relax is that it compromises your mental well-being and puts you at the risk of depression and anxiety. You start second-guessing all the work you do and doubt all the progress you’ve made so far, causing your work quality to decrease while also making you feel more anxious. What’s more worrying is that these feelings often disguise themselves as discontent and can go undiagnosed without professional help.
Crunch Hours Are Expected, But Everybody Deserves Some Rest Too
No matter how dedicated and devoted you are to your career, you must understand that resting and building back up the strength to challenge tomorrow is still part of the job. And it’s wrong to expect so much from your body without the chance to catch a breath because everyone deserves their fair share of rest because we are not robots that can operate at 100% nonstop efficiency.
- Optimize Your Self-Care Routine: If you’re feeling down and can’t work around the stress that’s bothering your mind, an excellent place to start healing and recovering is by optimizing your self-care routine. For example, you could opt for healthier meals to combat that sluggishness and drowsiness you feel in the morning, and you could also take back some time to exercise to channel your emotions onto something else.
- Revisit Other Dimensions Of Your Life: Besides grasping the value of self-care, it also helps to revisit other dimensions of your life that may have been overlooked or ignored because you spent too much time on your career. For example, you may have missed out on some plans with your friends, or maybe the kids have an overdue appointment at the children’s dental care center.
- Reconsider Current Goals And Career Situation: Last but not least, if you feel like the work-related stress has become overbearing and impossible to balance, you might want to reconsider your current goals and career situation as well. Sometimes, you need to have a sit-down and discuss with your employer possible intervention measures or reassignment to a different team.
Nobody Runs On Limitless Batteries, And Neither Should You
In conclusion, we want to emphasize that working 24/7 is bad for your health because all that stress on focus on work will cause you more problems than it solves. So, if everyone else gets the opportunity to relax, please don’t deprive yourself of that right as well.
