5 Signs you have no work life balance

Work versus Life: Open your eyes to balance

An imbalance between your personal life and work can have serious or effects on your health and well-being. This imbalance is likely to occur when the boundaries between professional and personal life are not clearly demarcated. This way you’re unable to follow discipline around what is important for your well-being. In the long-run, work-life imbalance leads to a multifaced impact not just on physical health but also causes poor emotional outcomes like stress, depression, and anxiety.

Let’s understand what these signs of work-life imbalance are, so that you are more mindful of them.

Sign #1 Unexplained fatigue

You might think that you’re getting six hours of sleep at night, and in theory, that’s enough rest for your body. So, there’s nothing to worry about right? But despite the six or oftentimes even eight hours of sleep, you might feel a sense of fatigue or exhaustion which you cannot just brush off. This fatigue is not essentially physical, it’s more likely to be psychological. You don’t realize that your brain also needs replenishment, not just your body. Maybe your mind is unable to switch off. If we did an EEG (electroencephalography) of the brain when you are overworked, it might most likely reveal a wakeful record. This means, despite sleeping, your brain is awake, alert, and active through the night. That is why you cannot focus or make decisions at the pace you once were used to. This fatigue won’t let you excel at your work.

Sign #2 Aches and pains

When overworked, you may feel real physical pain, but the cause of that pain could be psychological. Continuous and ongoing stress of work with no opportunities to relax, allows the muscles to tense up — and over time, that can lead to pain and soreness in virtually any part of the body. The most common stress-related aches and pains are experienced in the neck, back, and shoulders because these are the muscles that tend to tense up seated on an office chair in a crouched or slumped posture. The constant state of strain should alert you to the fact that something is not okay in the mind, and the pain is asking for your attention. When you as well as your doctor cannot put a finger on your physical complaints, it is likely that you have been overworking and not been able to replenish your muscle energy. Listen to your body. It’s speaking up about you ignoring it.

Sign #3 People are begging for your time

Most people say they work to provide for their family. But family needs more than the money you earn for them by working. When you have a good work-life balance, you’re more likely to have the mental and emotional energy to give your family (and children) the loving attention they need. Often enough you spend all day conversing with people around you at work, but you don’t even realize that you haven’t any spent time with friends or had a real conversation with your family. If people are always complaining that they never see you then it’s probably true; maybe you’re never there. It’s a sign you need to reprioritize how you are spending your time.

Sign #4 Your phone sits with you for dinner

Psychology research has proved that those who sit with phones on a dinner table do not enjoy their food or company as much as those who focus on communication exchange and social interaction. There will always be something important on your phone, to attend to, and it will attract your attention. After all, you are a perfectionist, and you like to do it just right. But ask yourself – would it be the end of the world if you responded after 30 minutes? Is it really that important? Is your family so unimportant that you cannot eat a meal without that distraction? Maybe it’s become a conditioned response. You know it’s not required but you still have to respond to every notification. A phone on the dinner table is not just rude but also intrusive. Keep watch and realize that you may be striking the wrong side of the balance by ignoring family and attending to what ideally can wait and be tackled later.

Sign #5 You’re feeling like an imposter

What happened to the focused, goal-directed, and happy winner you once knew yourself to be? Notice whether you still have a clear vision of your future with respect to career, family and other social connections, recreational pursuits, and aspects of physical and mental health that determine your wellness. Is your current work-life balance consistent with making progress toward all your goals. Or you are beginning to lose yourself in the whirlpool of over accountability towards work? If you’ve put on weight and you’re wondering, “How did I let this happen to me” or if you’ve lost touch with family and are getting drawn towards alcohol and nicotine; you might catch yourself feeling like an imposter. “This is not me; this isn’t who I am. I’m not a grumpy, unhappy, ill-tempered bore!”  This should warn you of the imbalance.

Takes steps to balance work and life today!

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