We all need a little reminder about the importance of taking time off work. Here’s why you should take more breaks, and not feel guilty about it.
Work. It’s what we do. 40 plus hours a week for the majority of our adult lives. Many people enter the workforce and do little else until it’s time to retire.
It’s estimated that the average person will spend one-third of their life at work. That’s roughly 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime. And there are many who will far exceed that figure.
The Japanese, for example, are well known for their working culture. Long working hours and extreme loyalty to a company is a normalised way of life that has become a major social issue. So much so that they use the term ‘Karoshi’, which translates to death by overwork.
Work gives us a sense of purpose and the income we need to survive, but too much of it has a cost. Anxiety, fatigue, hypertension, depression and mental health issues are common in groups with high-stress jobs and long working hours.
Karoshi is legally recognised by the Japanese government and is typically marked by a heart attack, stroke or suicide due to stress. Hundreds of cases are recorded annually, but it’s believed they may be grossly under reported.
We’re all a little guilty, as many other countries report similar issues connected to long working hours, so if you’ve been overworking and are starting to feel the negative effects, it’s time for a break. This is your reminder about the importance of taking time off.
Here are 5 key benefits:
Improved health
Research shows the damage to our physical and mental health that overwork can cause. Common outcomes include anxiety, anger, depression, mood swings, hypertension and heart disease.
Taking time off from work and engaging in healthy practices can help reduce stress, lower blood pressure, stabilise moods, increase positive emotions and prevent the exacerbation of disease.
Enhanced creativity
Creativity is stifled when we’re working all the time. Our best ideas don’t come when we’re staring at a computer screen, nor can we solve important problems when we’re thinking about them constantly.
It’s in the spaces that we have our ‘Aha!’ moments.
We’ve all woken up in the middle of the night with an idea. Or, solved a challenging problem while doing something unrelated such as exercising, hoovering and washing the dishes. That’s because our brains are most active in leisure.
Neuroscience has found that moments of creativity take place when the mind is at rest instead of working on something. When a person is calm, Neurons light up and connect parts of the brain that don’t typically communicate to form new patterns.
Increased motivation
Repetition, stress and fatigue are motivation killers. When we feel like we’re stuck in a rut, and not making any progress our desire to work declines.
We barely want to get out of bed in the morning, let alone perform in the office.
Taking time off work can break the monotony and gives us a chance to recharge our batteries. When we relax and do something fun, all of our body systems can work more effectively and give us the boost in energy we need.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a role in mood, motivation, attention, learning and cognition. It increases when we exercise, maintain a health diet, do pleasurable activities, meditate and sleep well. When dopamine is elevated we feel good, think more about our goals and are driven to work harder.
Improved performance
Many people equate long working hours with high-performance, but there’s a point of diminishing returns. Most of us know that yet often carry on regardless.
One study from Stanford University showed that productivity per hour declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a week. In the study, Professor John Pencavel argues that after 55 hours, productivity drops so much that putting in any more hours would be pointless. And, those who work up to 70 hours a week are only getting the same amount of work done as those who put in the 55 hours.
Another study from Japan showed that when long working hours are reduced, individual productivity increases, and fewer mistakes are made at work.
Each of us has a different zone of performance at work, so that’s something you might want to explore. What kind of work and how many hours are you most effective with? What outside activities make you more productive when you return to the office?
Perspective
We all need a little perspective in our lives but that’s difficult to attain when our nose is kept to the grindstone. It’s impossible to see the bigger picture when we’re working all the time.
Why are you working so hard? Why are you spending so much time on this particular project? Is this the most effective way? Or, are you just beating your head against the wall? Should you even be doing this?
Sometimes, we don’t see (or want to admit) that we’re wasting our time.
Take a break and change your point of view. Look at your work/life from a different angle. Are you working effectively, or simply working? Is work adding to your life, or is it sucking the life out of you? What can you do to change that?
I like to take a long-weekend every month and a week off at the end of every quarter. That allows me to plan sprints and periods of deep work with a recovery break built in to rest and recharge for the next block.
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Image: @pawelj
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