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Is your work-life making you sick and cranky?

Written by: Gael Drum

Article Overview: If you are living your life similar to that of a speeding rollercoaster, and you don’t stop to take time out for relaxation and play, you can become sick and cranky!

Is your work-life making you sick and cranky?

We know that living in the 21st century can be similar to sitting on a rollercoaster zooming along at an incredibly frantic pace. It can be a challenging task to pull on the brakes and slow the rollercoaster down, refuel it, and attend to its maintenance, so it can run at its optimum level. Work deadlines, budgets, IR laws and regulations along with stiff competition can attribute to the speed and the intensity that keeps a person on their rollercoaster. If you do not stop your rollercoaster to fuel up, maintain and repair its mechanicals, it becomes unstable and can cause serious discomfort and tragedy. If you are living your life similar to that of a speeding rollercoaster, and you don’t stop to take time out for relaxation and play, it can affect you mentally and physically. Stress chemicals such as adrenalin, cortisol and lactic acid constantly flood the system and your physical body has no time to repair itself, therefore it begins to breakdown and malfunction…… You become susceptible to headaches, allergies, fatigue and immune system disorders such as flu, infections and disease. You become susceptible to unhealthy behaviors. It can cloud your decision making, and slow down your productivity. Another similarity to a rollercoaster is that your work can become monotonous, boring and insecure. Stuck in an unchallenging or unrewarding job, or living with constant fear of retrenchment can also cause stress chemicals to flood the body, and over time, make a person sick and cranky! To minimize or if necessary, reverse these effects it is essential to look if you have any timewasters that fill your day up unnecessarily, and then replace these timewasters with activities which will give you sustainable energy, motivation and good health. Ditch Timewasters - For instance, do you do other people’s work or tasks, when they are perfectly capable of them? If you do, it’s time to STOP! When you are taking on other peoples commitments, they are not learning to take responsibility for themselves. They are unable to make the mistakes which are necessary for their own personal growth. It’s OK to say ‘NO’. Be honest with yourself and write down any unhealthy habits which are eating into your day or weeks. Take small steps towards minimizing these habits, and you will be rewarded with extra time in your day to use more productively. Unreasonable workloads create poor performance and can lead to critical mistakes. Be honest with your boss and tell her/him it is physically impossible for you to accomplish an unrealistic demand, and then offer a solution needed to complete the task successfully. Schedule a lunch hour into your diary and make sure you leave your office or your home, to eat lunch. Sit somewhere quietly and eat a healthy meal, -slowly. Be mindful of each mouthful; savour the tastes and textures of your food. Separate your work from your home life. When you arrive home from work and before beginning your home duties, sit in your garden or go for a walk. Soak in a bath or take a 10 min power nap. Take a short break, a weekend away, or just get in the car and drive somewhere different for the day. Schedule it in NOW! Meditate – Relax naturally and as often as you want. To reduce stress chemicals, take yourself away to a deserted island in the Bahamas fro 5-20 mins every day. Or, listen to a visualization CD and be guided to a peaceful place to totally bliss out….. When you ditch timewasters and replace them with activities which relax, energize and motivate you, you then have additional energy and motivation which fuels your productivity and inspires you to make the changes which are necessary for personal and professional growth.

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Article Tags: commitments, constant fear, cortisol, ditch, flu infections, frantic pace, good health, headaches, immune system disorders, laws and regulations, mechanicals, optimum level, retrenchment, similarity, stiff competition, stress chemicals, sustainable energy, timewasters, unhealthy behaviors, work deadlines



Related Forum Posts
Re: How many vacation and sick days do you give yourself? - I try to give myself a day off once a week, that usually never happens because I just want to check my emails. When I am sick I am not working, how can you work when you are sick? I can't concentrate. I do take more days off from day job than my online biz. I have such a cool manager, she always looks at the schedule and ask who wants a day off or go home early, I wish I could say yes all the time, but then i will end up with an empty pay check at the end off the month. From previous experience, when I take more than a day off from my biz I can see it slows things, I don't like that at all.
How many vacation and sick days do you give yourself? - As an entrepreneur, how many vacation and sick days do you give yourself? Do you stick with a more traditional format like 2 weeks of vacation and 5 paid sick days [u:1u0ie5s4]Or[/u:1u0ie5s4] is there no limit? And if there is no limit, do you find this hurts your productivity and overall work ethic?
Re: Kevin's Forum Mastermind Group - [quote="TannyL":2k7qi9si]In my country, you get sick days, and get paid up to 45 day (or so), this gives you the time to rest without thinking about anything else. If there is some rehabilitation to do, it is also paid for.[/quote:2k7qi9si] Sure full-time employees have paid sick days or can even take leave of absences... but in today's poor job economy, you can bet whoever takes an extended "leave" will also likely be the next candidate to lose his/her job.
Re: 4 Ways to Go From Employee to Entrepreneur - The situation that Wezi describes is more the norm than the exception. I have spoken to many "entrepreneurs-to-be" that have a desire to work for themselves but can't overcome the fear of making that critical leap. The truth of the matter is, if fear is preventing you from moving forward with your own business you need to overcome that fear first. To do this, try this exercise: 1. Write down as many detailed reasons why you are DISSATISFIED with remaining in your job until you retire. E.g., it won't let you achieve the lifestyle you desire; you are sick of commuting an hour each day; etc. 2. Write down in as much detail as possible your VISION of what your life will be like once you have your own business and you are fully engaged in it. Enjoy this step. 3. Create a list of the action steps you need to actually complete to get things rolling. What do you need to do first? Second? Third? Create a step by step plan. These three steps all work together to overcome any resistance you may feel towards making a major change in your career. If after these exercises, you are still too afraid, look at what you have written down. Chances are one of the three forces for change (dissatisfaction, vision, or first steps) are not yet strong enough to overcome your fear. Perhaps, once you really thought about it, things aren't really that bad in your current career, etc.... Hope this helps.
Re: Kevin's Forum Mastermind Group - [quote="Kevin":1i7z363e][quote="TannyL":1i7z363e]In my country, you get sick days, and get paid up to 45 day (or so), this gives you the time to rest without thinking about anything else. If there is some rehabilitation to do, it is also paid for.[/quote:1i7z363e] Sure full-time employees have paid sick days or can even take leave of absences... but in today's poor job economy, you can bet whoever takes an extended "leave" will also likely be the next candidate to lose his/her job.[/quote:1i7z363e] So true Kevin, The education department just cut a big piece from our school budget, and they are sending some teachers home. One of our teachers probably will go too, after having a surgery last month. The sad part is she is providing to a family of 7, she has 5 boys, that eat all the time. She can find a teaching job at another school, but the point is that nothing is secure any more. At my husband job, they cut the hours and starting today, they are not paying the travel fees, how do they want people to get to work?


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