One of the concerns many professionals now have is maintaining a good work-life balance. In concept, it seems simple. Work-life balance is, as the name suggests, giving equal weight to both professional obligations and personal life so that one doesn’t overwhelm the other.
In most cases, it’s all too easy for work to take up well over 50% of this balance, but why should it matter? If life is mostly work, or even all work, how is that bad if it means you’re being useful, productive and getting paid? Here are three reasons from Technalink about why striking a balance is important.
It’s Good For Your Health
If your life is more work than life, this will shorten your lifespan. Constant work, with no life, relationships, or personal commitments outside of it, means the constant presence of stress, the absence of socializing, and little to no time to do healthy things like exercise, or take the time to eat healthier foods.
The human body is designed to only work. Ignoring everything in your life except your work will wear out your stamina and your psyche at a much faster rate than if you have other things going on. In short, you’ll use yourself at a much faster rate.
Keep Productivity Up
Because humans are not machines, staying at an office all the time, abstaining from food, or even sleep will decrease productivity and results. Someone who is well-rested, with eight hours of sleep, and regular meals, will be sharper, more focused, more energetic and more attentive than someone that has been up for 48 hours, with only some coffee to stay awake.
Managers that expect employees to work like machines, at 100% efficiency, all the time, with no rest, sleep, or food, are managers with unrealistic expectations. If those same managers would never apply that work ethic to themselves, it creates a serious imbalance in the workplace.
It Enlivens Work
People that have more in their lives besides work can bring that experience with them, so it benefits work. For example, someone that finds respite in meditation using rose quartz mala prayer beads can use those same techniques for quick, “recharging breaks” to maintain productivity at work.
These outside techniques can even be incorporated as part of work, to improve everyone’s workday, and help to restore some of that important work-life balance for a happier, healthier life both in the workplace and outside it.
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