The stats are there to back us up and it has been found that a lot of us are losing sleep because of our work life. Tackling the stats alone, it was discovered that over 40 per cent of professionals were losing sleep because of how they were bringing work into their bedroom and with them to sleep. Why most of them do so is because of how they feel they are responsible for their job or the success of the company even after leaving the office for home and that means spending the wee hours of the night racking their brains for solutions towards their business problems. Thus, it is no longer a surprise that a number of professionals are blaming their bosses for those long nights that are spent just staring at the ceiling.
For the longest time, my parents have always asked me to adhere to a strict bedtime at 10pm and across my rebellious teenage years, I have tried pushing back my bedtime at half an hour intervals till the 12am bedtime as of now. While the longer hours that I now have in the night are great for binge-watching television series, I realised that when I get lesser sleep, my sleep quality suffers as a result. Coupled that with the increasing stress at work to deliver and meet the key performance indicators set at the start of the year, there are mornings when I feel deflated from the stress of it all and it becomes a cycle that is hard to get out of. If you suspect that you are one of the few who feel your sleep is suffering as a result of your work, this article is for you.
Workaholic Much?
We are not making this up, some people are indeed “diagnosed” with workaholism and that is an addiction to work and it is most noticeable when people have a tough time moving away from work even after office hours. Even when they are out of the office, they are very likely to be the ones refreshing their email inbox at home or checking up on any voicemail that they missed while having dinner. This obsession to work might seem like a positive but it has taken on a much more negative note since it affects their work-life balance and they would barely have time for the important things in life like their hobbies, friends and family. What would happen is that they would start feeling more stressed up about their lives and suffer from stress-related health issues like heart issues and insomnia.
Downside To Insomnia
Insomnia is defined as those moments when you find it difficult to fall asleep even when it is time for bed. Due to the reduced hours of sleep, insomniacs actually suffer from fatigue and reduced cognitive functioning during their waking times. Irritability and flashes of anger are some common characteristics of insomniacs as well and that might actually harm relationships between co-workers. If this insomnia continues over time, it raises the probability of one developing anxiety or depression from not being able to sleep just as well. If you are starting to notice dark eye circles around your eye sockets, you might be at risk of work-related insomnia and it is time to change that.
Here’s What You Can Do
Something that you can do to stop the work from getting to you is to try making a list of all the problems at work that are making your heart race. These can be issues like managing your workload, problems with your colleagues and even a meeting with your boss later in the day. What this list is for is to help you identify which of your fears and problems are out of your control and are irrational in the process as these worries about not doing well in work or getting fired could easily go out of hand. Writing it down on a piece of paper might help you realise that your worries are unfounded and this would calm you down and make the separation between work and life much more distinct. If you realise that you have too much work on your hands, perhaps it is a good time to bring it up to your boss and request for the workload to be divided among your other co-workers.
Another thing you should do is to fight the urge to start up the laptop in the middle of the night to try to “fight fire”. Chances are that when you work through the wee hours of the night, you are unlikely to be at your very best and mistakes are more likely to happen when you are fighting sleep. At the same time, the blue light emitted from your computer would also disrupt your sleep rhythm and you will find it much harder to sleep when you shut your eyes.