Guest post by George Mears
Even if you love your job, keeping a strong work-life balance is vital for avoiding burnout and maintaining your health and relationships. Some research indicates that poor work-life balance can eventually lead to a number of health problems, including increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and depression. Fortunately, there are quite a few things you can do to keep yourself healthy while still enjoying your career. Here are four ways to improve your work-life balance.
Find Ways to Exercise
Healthline explains exercise is incredibly important for both physical and mental health. It can boost your energy levels, reduce your risk for disease, and even improve your outlook on life. Try aiming for approximately 30 minutes of physical activity every day, with frequent movement throughout the day to minimize extended sedentary periods.
While it can be hard to set aside extensive amounts of time for trips to the gym, even small decisions throughout the day can add up. Try going for a brief walk every hour at work, get out of the office at lunchtime, or work out longer on the weekends.
For extra motivation, a fitness tracker like the Apple Watch Series 4 can become your activity coach. It’ll track your steps, monitor your heart rate, help plan your routine, and automatically know when you’re working out. Another great choice is the Polar A370, which helps with both daytime and nighttime activity. It includes heart rate monitoring to gauge your workouts and sleep tracking to analyze whether you’re getting good-quality rest.
Side note from Rita May: Use the Floral Coloring Planner to track your new habits and your mood, plan your days and weeks, and color the beautiful floral patterns to relax. You can get it for the price of a coffee.
Prioritize Sleep
When you’re busy with work, sleep is often one of the first things to be sacrificed. It’s easy to feel as though you can get by on just a few hours of sleep per night — but Johns Hopkins Medicine explains that this can be incredibly detrimental to your health, increasing your risk for issues like dementia and certain cancers.
Instead of deciding to “catch up” on sleep over the weekend, try to consistently get 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night during the week. Make changes to your sleep environment to promote better slumber as needed. For instance, if light is peeking through your curtains, add blackout shades. Sometimes a seemingly subtle adjustment can make a huge difference.
Set Clear Boundaries
With the prevalence of technology, sometimes it can feel impossible to disconnect from work. You may feel like you always need to be reachable, making it so that you can never relax even when you’re at home. PsychCentral notes setting clear boundaries, both for yourself and your employer, can help you ensure that you actually enjoy your time off.
Make sure that you clearly and professionally communicate your boundaries to the people you work with. It is completely acceptable — and healthy — to have time to yourself outside of work. You can also set boundaries for yourself; for example, decide that you will check your work email from home before dinner, but then put your devices away for the rest of the evening.
Side note from Rita May: if stress at work drives you to use food as a tool to release stress or as the main source of pleasure, check out my How to Stop Eating Your Feelings Workbook to discover what you are REALLY hungry for and finally break free from emotional and stress eating.
You can read a free chapter of the workbook HERE.
Spend Time With Loved Ones
Whether this means your significant other, your friends, or your family, spending time with loved ones is vital for a healthy work-life balance. Connecting with others can reduce your risk for depression and strengthen your immune system. It also helps you maintain perspective, rather than getting completely overwhelmed with your professional life.
If you can, try setting up regular dates to do something with your friends or family. This doesn’t need to be a huge time commitment — invite someone over for pizza and a movie, go grab a coffee on Saturday morning, or simply talk on the phone. Fostering relationships and setting down your professional responsibilities for a while will help you maintain a healthy outlook on life, and will enable you to return to work fresh.
Taking time to step away from work and prioritize your own well-being is incredibly important. Not only will it help you stay healthy throughout your life — it will help ensure that you can be fully present, creative, and productive in both your personal and professional life.
George Mears is a brain fitness expert, educator, and counselor. He is passionate about sharing his thoughts and research through his articles.
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