Are You a Workaholic? Get Help to Balance Your Life-- Terra Wellington's Balanced Living

Top five ways to battle overworking.
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Originally Published March 7, 2005 -- Your Wellness Guide

Are You a Workaholic? Get Help to Balance Your Life

As seen on NBC's Arizona Midday on 4/5/05 and
ABC's Sonoran Living on 3/3/05.

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For additional ideas on balancing work and life:
Simple Living -- New Tools and Trends
Multitasking, Improve Your Focus
Unpack Your Life, Enjoy Life's Simple Luxuries and Less Stress
The Simple Life: Trend Bodes Well For Change

Are you or someone you know a workaholic? You would be surprised to know that many of us are hardworking addicts – addicted to work. Employers generally support it. Families can fall apart because of it. But in the long run, working too much to justify productivity and efficiency might only be at the expense of your health and happiness.

With no mandated law giving the right to a paid vacation in the U.S., the American culture gravitates toward fast pace, 24/7, and long days. The downsizing onslaught of the past several years has not helped matters. Our European employer counterparts are mandated to give employees up to six weeks off each year. This difference alone changes a culture. What would you do with six weeks off?

Apparently most of us wouldn’t even dream of it. An Expedia.com recent survey showed that 30 percent of Americans give back vacation days to the company – increasing stress and lowering productivity. People are making themselves valuable by refusing vacation. And if you own your own business, you might feel the need to work even more. Entrepreneurs often have a hard time placing boundaries on work, especially when things aren’t going the way they want.

Here are just a few questions you can ask yourself to see if you are becoming a workaholic -- from Workaholics Anonymous:

	Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?
	Do you take work with you to bed? on weekends? on vacation?
	Do you work more than 40 hours a week?
	Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?
	Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing?

There are three major downsides to being a workaholic: 1) leisure deficit, 2) health risks, and 3) relationship losses.

When all you do is work, you develop a one-sided view of life and begin to actually be afraid to play. But playing is a natural part of living and helps maintain balance, health, and clarity in your life. My favorite book on this subject is Permission to Play by Jill Murphy Long. When you’re a child, you have recess. When you are an adult, there is no mandated recess. Do you know what you would do if someone said, ‘go and play today’? If you don’t, then you need to take a look at your leisure time and options.

When working becomes a true addiction, there are also health and relationship problems that develop. Working too much is physically debilitating. The rush of adrenaline during work becomes addicting (you are addicted to your own adrenaline). This can lead to a surge of energy followed by a crash, which can lead to poor sleep and a loss of emotional sensitivity. You can also ruin your closest relationships because you are seldom around for your family and friends; and when you do show up, all you think about is work.

How can you avoid being a workaholic or help your loved one who works too much?

	Be Willing – Recognize you have a problem. You cannot make changes unless you 1) are willing to realize you have a problem and 2) are willing to change. If your spouse or loved one is a workaholic, you can make changes or learn new skills that will help the addict change behaviors. But, you cannot force an addict to change.
	Ask for Help – Look to a group like Workaholics Anonymous (www.workaholics-anonymous.org) to find support. Attend meetings and look for additional resources and ideas, such as the group’s recommended reading list. Ask your loved ones for their insight on how you can reduce your work and how they would like you to spend your non-work time. Non-addicts can also find Workaholics Anonymous meetings helpful in learning new skills to help a workaholic loved one. Other addiction recovery groups, like Alcoholics Anonymous, can also be helpful resources to learn how help your addict.
	Prioritize – Make sure you are spending your work time on priorities, otherwise your day lengthens. Reorganize priorities as the day progresses. Non-addicts can help their loved ones learn how to prioritize.
	Truly Unwind Everyday – Dedicate daily time to unwinding, whether it be meditation, breathing exercises, prayer, yoga, couch potato TV watching, gardening, playing with the kids, or some other recreational or restorative activity. DO NOT TURN THIS TIME INTO WORK. Be spontaneous, fun, non-competitive. If you can’t do this for at least a couple of hours each day, you are not giving yourself enough time to unwind. Non-addicts can encourage downtime for the workaholic by making time off seem fun and inviting.
	Balance Your Time – Take inventory of your time. You should have time for healthy friend and family relationships, physical exercise and good nutrition, a spiritual practice and service opportunities, and occasions for creative projects and ongoing education. If work precludes you from fitting in these components of a more balanced lifestyle, take a hard look at how much time you are spending at your job. You can help your workaholic loved one balance his or her time by creating balancing activities and inviting him or her to, for example, do a fun, creative project or take a bike ride together.

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