Being a workaholic isn’t bad for your health — if you love your job.
The general assumption is that being a workaholic is bad for you and will lead to a heart attack. People who are not engaged in their work have a higher risk of metabolic syndrome, which is the overarching measure for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Just working long hours doesn’t increase the risk of severe health issues (although it can cause stress-related physical complaints like headaches), according to a new study conducted by Simon Fraser University, in conjunction with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina Charlotte.
What makes all the difference for a workaholic is engagement. A look at 763 employees of an international firm found that those who felt disengaged were more prone to significant health-risk factors like high blood pressure and obesity, while engaged and happy workers showed none of those signs. So if you want to burn the midnight oil to finish that assignment, go ahead — as long as it’s out of love and not ambition or stressful workplace challenges.
You need to be really honest with yourself about why you work and what the intrinsic motivators are. Do you work because it’s meaningful or because you truly enjoy what you’re doing? If so, those are healthy drives. But if you’re only working long hours because you need the money to fund your lifestyle or you’re addicted to the status, those aren’t healthy. Lieke ten Brummelhuis, assistant professor of management at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University
Workaholics have two different dimensions:
- those who work excessively
- those who work compulsively
The difference is the former group works that way of their own accord, while the latter is driven by compulsion and guilt.
An engaged workaholic is not immune to subjective well-being indicators, like sleep issues, fatigue, stomach upset and headaches, but their engagement indicates an active mentality. Committed people take action and do something about it, like re-evaluating their job and questioning if it’s right for them, as well as seeking support to make sure things improve.
… But it doesn’t mean you should never disconnect. Boston Consulting Group ran an experiment back in 2004:
They made each worker pick a weekday to disconnect completely. What they found is that communication, satisfaction, and employee retention soared; consultants worked more closely together and stopped sweating the small stuff.
They also had more space to do “deep work”—the sort of intense thinking that’s often much more valuable than the daily tasks that eat up our time. Yes, technology blurs the distinction between work and life but if we want to do anything more interesting and important than just answering e-mails and IMs, it seems a separation is necessary. Manoush Zomorodi, podcast host and author
SuccessFinder measures workaholism, guilt, compulsion, and satisfaction among its 85 performance traits to enable you to know if you are at risk. We analyze your unique performance makeup and career interests to predict your potential success across 500 of the most sought-after job roles – the right job is good for your health!
