You might find yourself thinking of the weekends as a time to get caught up on work, or to get ahead for the next work week. Or perhaps you’re in the habit of working long hours and plan to work even more this week.
If that’s the case, you may want to rethink your plans.
Research show that working too much and staying connected, with no breaks, can be just as damaging to your health as it is to your career.
Getting in the habit of closing your laptop, putting your phone on vibrate and shutting down social media could have long-lasting effects on your life. Here are 11 points to help convince you of the benefits.
- One study from The Business Roundtable found that employees who work 60-hour weeks over a two-month period tend to become less productive. The net result? The productivity equivalent over those two months is the same as if they had just worked 40-hour weeks.
- Working overtime, in addition to decreasing productivity, might also double the chances of an individual experiencing a major depressive episode, even without other risk factors.
- A study showed that 195 men between the ages of 30 and 60, who regularly worked more than 11 hours each day had more than twice the chance of having a heart attack than those working fewer hours.
- Different studies have shown that wakeful rest, or the period of being awake and not working, is when your brain processes vital components that can lead to better memory and greater problem-solving abilities.
- The stress hormone, cortisol, is much higher when waking up on work days than it is on rest days.
- Resting helps you to have a better work-life balance that can lead to greater job satisfaction.
- Ernst & Young found that employees’ year-end performance ratings increase by 8 percent for each additional 10 hours of vacation.
- The Women’s Health Initiative found that women who sit for longer periods have a reduced lifespan.
- Vacations aren’t a long-term rest solution, since studies have shown that vacation benefits tend to last only two to four weeks; mini-vacations from work on the weekends, though, can help more.
- Temporary eye strain, which can be caused by working at computers, can lead to glaucoma, which is one cause of blindness.
- In one study, couples where both spouses felt work stress were also more distant, independent and anxious.