Takeaway: When you’re working too much and not enjoying life, your health can suffer. Not only do you lose out on enjoying your personal life, but you’re spending all your waking hours at work. Making changes helps you avoid the overworking trap and get the work-life balance you deserve. In this blog, I’ll walk you through what overworking looks like and how to conquer it.

I won’t sugarcoat it; today’s job market is rough.

You’re up against hundreds, if not thousands, of other applicants who may have the same background and qualifications. If you land an interview, you’re one of the lucky few. 

After spending dozens of hours preparing to answer potential questions and perfecting your resume, you meet with the hiring manager and get the job.

Now that a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders, you can finally relax, right? 

In America, not quite. 

Whether it's due to mounting deadlines, career ambitions, financial pressures, or the everyday demands of modern life, many workers find themselves in the same situation, spending more time stressed out during working hours than they'd like, often at the expense of their overall enjoyment of life. 

The 2022 ComPsych Stress report confirms this, reporting the following statistics:

• 62% of employees reported they had high levels of stress, with extreme fatigue/feeling out of control. 

• 73% of employees cite workload and people issues as the main contributors to stress.

• 34% of employees lose an hour or more of productivity per day due to stress.

Clearly, many workers are finding themselves in the same demanding professional situation.  

But what happens when you get to this point? When do you know you’ve hit rock bottom with work stress? How do you dig yourself out of the trenches to protect your physical and mental health? Is a healthy work life balance completely out of the question?

Maybe not. 

Healing your mental health from working too much and not enjoying life starts with recongizing the signs of overworking and their impact on your physical and mental health.

In this blog, we’ll discuss several ways to cope with being overworked and bounce back to living the life you deserve—inside and outside the office.

How Working Too Much Impacts Physical and Mental Health 

The World Health Organization acknowledges that work can be a protective factor for health, but it also endorses the harmful effects of not having a work-life balance. 

Chronic stress raises the amount of cortisol, the stress hormone, in your body, causing an increased risk of conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and depression.

Long-term exposure to high levels of cortisol can disrupt your quality of sleep, worsen anxiety, and even harm your cognitive functioning, making it difficult to concentrate and make decisions.  

It’s obvious that working too much can have a detrimental impact on your health, causing your well being to suffer.

And for what? Long hours, losing sleep, and significant health problems?

Let’s talk more about how you can identify signs of overworking and create a new life outside of work.

How do you know you’re overworking yourself? 

When you’re overworked, you might find yourself saying: 

• “I feel like all I do is work.”

• “I’m sick of working my life away.”

• “I work too much and have no life.”

• “I can’t remember the last time I went out with friends."

Do you identify with any of these?

If so, here are a few other factors that contribute to you’re overworking yourself. 

Chronic Fatigue 

When you have chronic fatigue, you constantly feel exhausted despite getting enough sleep, signaling that your body is struggling to keep up with the demands of your workload. You might even notice muscle tension or pain when you feel fatigued. 

Neglecting Self-Care 

Skimping on basic self-care activities such as exercise, healthy eating, and relaxation is a sign that your job responsibilities take precedence over your ability to spend time working on your own well being. 

Loss of Interest

If you start losing interest in activities that you used to enjoy, you might be becoming a consumed by your job.

Another sign is if you struggle to find time for hobbies or have trouble participating in them because you’re always prioritizing work over fun. 

Neglecting Relationships

Overworking frequently leads to deprioritizing relationships with friends, family members, or romantic partners because you’re only focused on advancing your career or meeting job-related goals.

Burnout

Experiencing an overwhelming sense of exhaustion and emotional drain, especially if you feel this way all the time, is called burnout.

It's a sign that you've been pushing yourself too hard for too long without giving yourself the time and space to rest and recharge.

Things to Do When You’re Working Too Much and Not Enjoying Life

Overworking is a bad thing and spending time outside of work is a good thing — contrary to what your seemingly extremely productive co worker might say. 

Here are a few of my best recommendations of what to do when you feel like you’re working your life away.

Take a Step Back

Even if you’ve just landed  your dream job, intervention is necessary to recover from spending too much time in a work environment and not enjoying life.

Although you might not want to, taking a step back is one of the most effective thing you can do to preserve your mental health. 

While most people aren’t in a position to leave their job on a whim or stop working completely, with careful planning, you can make life look a lot different by making simple lifestyle and mindset changes.

Mental health breaks are slowly destigmatizing themselves, becoming more of a necessity than a frivolous request.

Whether you spend this time searching for a different job or hanging out with friends, you’re allowing your body to rest and create a plan to improve your life. 

Self-Reflect 

Self-reflection allows you to learn about your priorities, values, and stressors, all necessary things to identify before setting realistic goals to improve your mental health.

During this period of relflection, you can identify patterns of overwork or where you’re neglecting your personal needs.

Not sure how to self-reflect?

It’s more than having a talk with yourself; you can journal about your daily experiences and emotions or seek feedback from trusted co workers or mentors on where you’re lacking balance in your professional life.

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Improving your work life balance isn’t an easy thing to do, especially when you love what you do.

Sit with the feelings of discomfort that arise when you realize you’re doing too much work and think about why you’re experiencing stress and struggle stop working long hours.

By challenging these beliefs, you’ll find out how to break the unhealthy habits associated with overworking. 

Learn How to Say No 

Don’t feel bad about saying no to taking on extra hours or work projects.

Set boundaries about what full time work looks for you because, as you’ll learn, it's not selfish to prioritize self-care and set limits on your workload; it's essential for maintaining your health and happiness.

This also may potentially help increase your job satisfaction, helping you focus on how to better use time management and more effectively plan your week.

Advocate for Yourself

There’s more to life than your job.

Even if your boss and co workers don’t see that, it’s not your responsibility to help them understand. However, you can talk with them about making work as stress-free as possible.

Schedule a meeting with your higher-ups to negotiate work hours, job duties, or to advocate for better mental health benefits. They won’t know you’re concerned about it unless you bring it up. 

Invest in Your Mental Health

Working too much is a struggle that we aren’t talking enough about.

As a therapist, I see so many career-oriented, driven women take on too much work at the expense of their mental health.

They’re not enjoying life as they should be, filling their days with healthy productivity instead of spending over 40 hours a week at the office. 

Invest in your mental health by finding a therapist who understands the demands of today’s work environment.

If you’re in the Wisconsin or Minnesota areas and want to explore therapy as an option for working through the effects of a high-demand career, please reach out and schedule a consultation.