dr. Lisa Silvani It’s important to have a healthy work-life balance for your own sake and the sake of your co-workers. It can be hard to keep up with a job when you are not getting enough rest, so it’s best to avoid that to the best of your ability. Make sure you’re doing everything you can to have a healthier life and keep your work-life balance on the right track.
Work-Life Balance is important
Work life balance is important for many reasons. It is important for the health of employees, which will allow them to be more productive. It is also important because it helps with relationships between spouses, children, parents, and friends. Lastly, it helps maintain the mental well-being of an individual.
The average of work life is not really in balance. Many workers right now are working until late at night, especially during this time where we experience major lockdown and work from home. It’s getting hard and harder to separate work and life without having your boss criticizing you.
But, working long hours doesn’t necessarily good for the companies either. From missing details, stressful worker also lead to ineffective meetings, reduce quality of task and more. So how do you get the best out of your employees and have a healthy work-life balance?
What are the signs of an unhealthy work-life balance?
1. You stop taking care of your body
The first signs of unhealthy work life balance is that you start to ignore how you look. Caring about our body and our look is not just an act of selfishness or seeking external validation but more of self caring and self supporting. So when someone doesn’t really care about their body and appearance, it can be a major signs of stress or even depression.
2. Your mental health is going downhill
Bad mood is normal. What is not normal is when you start to have bad mood everyday. Our mood changes so often and sometimes we don’t really realize it. But, we can always ask to our friends and or colleagues to check in whether we are really being present as the best of us are are we start to go downhill and act as if everything went crazy,
3. You just don’t care anymore
The most prominent sign that you need to take a break is when you feel that you just don’t care anymore. It can be as light as not caring about what your boss think, or what your task looks like. But it can also be in general which means that you probably already in a state of depression.
4. You feel incompetent
Feeling incompetent is one way to tell that you have unhealthy work life balance. This feeling can come because of your work ethic or company culture. It also can come because of the workload that are too heavy. Living you feel stressed out because you work so hard with little improvement to shows.
5. There are no clear boundaries between work and home
Boundaries are important. Not just to the people that you don’t like but also to your job and workplace. It is important to do your job well. But it’s also important to know when you are working and when you are living a home life.
6. You’re lonely
Sometimes we want to do our job better and reach that promotion or reach to new career level and we hustle and we put anything else on hold. Including our relationship with our friends and family. This can create a very lonely environment since we are still a social being and needs connection with other to thrive and be happy.
Create Mechanisms for Coping with Depression at Work
1. Create SMART goals
Having goals are important. But not every goals created equally. Some goals are just not good enough or better leave untouched. Obe of the best way to work with goals in mind is to make tit the SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
2. Manage your time efficiently
Managing time is crucial for everyone, but more important for workers, professionals, and enterpreneur. When manage correctly, time will be your greatest assets. You can do balance your live better when you can manage your time. Your task can finish faster, be more relaxed and have more time for your family and yourself.
3. Take movement breaks
Sometimes those lunch break can only fulfill your stomach but do nothing for your stiff shoulder and probably headache. Get some movement around workplace. Walking up and down the stairs, stretching or simply using a standing desk is going to improve your body and reduce pain and discomforts.
4. Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness means being present. Most of the time we juggle with everything and want everything be done as quickly as possible, But doing this mean we also stress ourselves too much and producing subpar quality of work. Exercise a mindfulness practice each and everyday can ensure you have your best self everyday and be present with whatever that comes to you.
5. Unplug
Sometimes you just need to take a break and unplug from everything. Shut down your laptop. Silent your phone. And just be present with yourself. Have a relaxing tea time or reading time or playing time with your kids. Sometimes it takes only 10 – 30 minutes to just be relaxed before you finally ready to get back to work.
6. Set boundaries
Boundaries between your work life and home life is important. This actually the one that sets apart the people who do well with work life balance. Having boundaries means that you separate the time and place for your work and home life. This can be tough for some people. Especially with a perfectionist. But if we want a better outcome both for our personal and work life, it’s just simply necessary.
7. Use your support system
Support system is important. And it can be anyone in your social circle. It usually consist of your family but can also be your friends or coworkers. So, having them as your go to person that you can rely on will lessen your mental burden and make your day easier.
How Your workplace can help
When talking about work life balance, it’s hard to put it only on the worker’s shoulder. Because many times, it also depend on the company policies and cultures. Many companies already start to adopt a more balance and healthy working environment with lots of support for their employees. But, unfortunately, not every company is designed this way.
If you work in a company where balancing life and work is tough, there is something that you can do to change this, or at least manage it so it doesn’t burden the employees (and the companies) too much.
Things A Company Can Do To Support Work Life Balance
- Have a breakout room that includes healthy refreshment such as fruits, nuts and seeds, and also plenty of mineral water.
- Create a support group where workers and employees can have meaningful and open discussion about their obstacles and hurdles about the work but also about their family.
- Have a office workout session every morning or afternoon to boost employees health and also encourage a healthier lifestyle.
Having a work life balance is a goal for many employees. Unfortunately, not all of us can really enjoy it.
Do you have a health work life balance?
What do you think we can add to the list that can support this in your life and workplace?
