Work-life balance is typically defined as the amount of time you spend doing your job versus the amount of time you spend with your friends, family, and pursuing your personal interests. Improving your work-life balance can potentially improve your overall well-being, including your physical, emotional, and mental health.
Studies have found that working long hours can lead to such serious health issues as “impaired sleep, depression, heavy drinking, diabetes, impaired memory, and heart disease.” Unfortunately, as these conditions arise, they can also exacerbate our work-life issues, which in turn can exacerbate the conditions themselves, thus leading to a vicious cycle.
Achieving a healthy work-life balance can not only potentially reduce stress and improve emotional states, but also increase overall productivity and employers’ bottom-line. A few tips to reduce stress and facilitate work-life balance:
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- Reduce your expectations of being “always on.” Give yourself permission to have downtime.
- Reduce your time constraints and reduce back-to-back meetings all day
- Meditate 5 minutes using Insight Timer can really help your mind and body recover from the constant social media distractions that lead to more stress.
Work-life balance is “equal time or priority to personal and professional activities.”