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Maintaining work-life balance has become a top priority for all working professionals. It's a term that's used to describe the balance between work and personal life. Staying in a work-life balance can have many benefits, including reducing stress and improving health.
Although work-life balance is important for everyone, it's often difficult to achieve. If you're living a balanced life, you should be happy and fulfilled at work, at home and in your personal life, and the three should go together seamlessly. To achieve that, a mix of healthy habits and lifestyle changes are needed to achieve a healthy balance in all areas of life.
How to Achieve Work-Life Balance and Enhance Mental Health
With many juggling heavy jobs, managing relationships, family responsibilities, and fitting in extracurricular activities, it's no surprise that more than one in four Americans describes themselves as very stressed. This lifestyle is neither healthy nor balanced.
It's easy to overlook the fact that when our stress levels rise, our productivity declines in our haste to 'get it all done' at home and at work. Stress can impair our ability to focus, make us agitated or unhappy, and damage our interpersonal and career connections.
Here are six practical steps we can take to reduce the hold stress has on us and regain our sense of equilibrium:
1) Set boundaries
Talking to your superior about serious concerns like setting limits or burnout can be scary. It can be easier to resolve any misunderstandings if you are up front about your demands, such as the fact that you don't answer emails on weekends, as you're spending time with your family.
Make a list of items that will simplify and lessen the stress of your work. Set up a meeting with your supervisor to talk over your priorities — the things that are most crucial or you can influence.
2) Creating a shutdown ritual
To fully get your mind off work and relax, experts suggest creating a shutdown ritual.
These rituals can help you check any missed work and also plan your next day's work. For example, you can check your emails for any recent urgent items, update your to-do list, check for any upcoming deadlines, and mark them as completed.
The idea is to get all work worries and unresolved tasks out of your head, creating a secure system that reassures you that they will get their due attention in the future.
This principle has been floating around for a while now but has been brought back into sharp focus as millions of employees moved work into their homes for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
3) Establish physical distance
You will always be physically separated from your job if you commute to and from work.
Working from home periodically is undoubtedly a wonderful bonus for a remote position. Making your living room your permanent office, though, may make things more stressful. After all, if it's the weekend, and you turn on a movie, you'll likely mistake your comfortable surroundings for your workplace.
Create a separate workplace space from your sleep and leisure areas as a solution. Even a specific table can be used instead of needing a separate room. Even if you are only a ten-foot walk away from your workplace, the goal is to establish a distinct location linked to it.
4) Seek professional support
You might believe that to work with a therapist, you must first experience a crisis. However, when it comes to striking a healthy work-life balance, therapists can be a great resource. A therapist may assist you in pinpointing things that might make your life meaningful and in outlining ways to get there.
They can help you with:
- Set both short- and long-term objectives.
- Recognizing the challenges of obtaining a better work-life balance.
- Establishing boundaries around time.
- Boost your enthusiasm, and maintain your commitment towards achieving both professional and personal goals.
5) Plan self-care activities
Make plans with your family and friends so that your personal time is fulfilling. Many of us value connecting online at the moment, but make an effort to take some downtime away from it as well.
Every evening or weekend, set aside a specific amount of time to turn off all electronic devices so that you may focus entirely on the people and activities that are most important to you. Try to establish a weekly schedule for yourself that incorporates time away from work in your daily routine.
6) Pay attention to your emotions
Examine how you feel in your current scenario once you've enhanced your awareness of it. Do you feel energized, satisfied, or full of purpose, or do you feel sad, bitter, or angry?
Emotional reflexivity, or the ability to detect how a situation is making you feel, is just as vital as having a cognitive awareness of the choices and values guiding your life. To decide what changes you want to make in your life and at work, you must be aware of your emotional state.
Takeaway
Work-life balance can feel tricky to achieve. However, by trying the aforementioned steps, you may begin to find ways to make work feel less consuming and free up focus for the other parts of your life – even when times are challenging. Remember that work-life balance is a cycle and not an end state in itself.
Janvi Kapur is a counselor with a Master's degree in applied psychology with a specialization in clinical psychology.
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