Tips to help with your mental health # 4 - Work / Life Balancing
Okay, so this may seem like an obvious one… but is it? For all of you reading this who are currently in some form of employment, how often do you find yourself working outside of work hours? How many times have you found yourself “just checking” your work emails in the evening or at the weekend? How many times have you had a work related phone call or text during your time away from work? How many times have you had projects to work on, research to do or paperwork to manage during your off hours? Especially now people can work from home, how difficult do you find it to separate work and home life?
The reality is that with the invention of email, mobile phones, Whatsapp and other communication apps, it has become standard practice and almost expected for work to intrude on home life. But at what cost? There is a reason we have working hours which (in theory) include a “break” time. There are reasons why the Working Time Directive (1998) was brought in to make it illegal to work more than 48 hours work a week (over an average 17 week period). And there’s a reason why there’s a minimum holiday allowance for workers in the UK. These support structures are all there to ensure we get adequate time away from work to give ourselves a rest, to switch off and focus on something enjoyable. This is essential for both our physical and mental health.
So what happens when we don’t have these breaks? Simply put, sooner or later (depending on the person and the extra pressure they’re put under), you will reach a place of burnout. Burnout is very similar to depression in its symptoms including low mood, apathy, exhaustion, finding no joy or happiness in things you used to find pleasurable, weight gain, sleeping issues and a real feeling of bleakness and hopelessness. Do any of these perhaps sound familiar to you?
So what’s the solution? Well I’m not going to put a blanket statement out there saying that no one should work outside their working hours as occasionally it may be necessary. But I would encourage you to think about the difference between what’s a necessity due to some emergency situation and what' has become the norm, the expected. Remember an employer will always push for more until the point you put in a boundary. What was once considered above and beyond will become expected without an adequate boundary. So take a moment to think about what your boundaries look like around your working life.
Think about things such as:
Can I remove my work emails from my personal phone to reduce the temptation to check?
Can I (within the bounds of work contracts), switch my phone to “do not disturb” mode during evenings and weekends.
Can I put a boundary in around what times I can work out of work hours and when I can stop
Have I become too dependent on work to fill my time and have I forgotten what it means to relax?
What do I enjoy?
What do I want to do with my time off?
Do I need to engage in some form of ritual to shut off from work at the end of my work day?
Even if realistically you need to spend some time working out of work, make sure it’s in a boundaried way with you setting the limits on how long you work, how much you do and at what time you switch off.
Above all. remember, we work to live, we don’t live to work! However if you’re struggling with this or any other mental health issue, please contact us today at info@londontherapyservices.co.uk to see how we can help you.