A workaholic is someone who works most of the time. And when not working, all that he or she can think about is work.
The problem with being a workaholic is it can put the health of an individual in danger — studies have shown that a lot of workaholics are at higher risk of suffering from physical and mental health issues than their non-workaholic counterparts.
Not sure if you can be regarded as a workaholic? Then simply rate the following from 1 (it happened never) to 5 (it happens all the time):
- You spend more time working than intended.
- You work in order to keep at bay feeling anxious, depressed or guilty.
- You have been asked a number of times by others to take it easy without paying attention to them.
- You feel stressed each time you are forbidden from working.
- You look for ways to free up more time so that you may be able work more.
- You have no time to engage in exercise, hobbies and leisure pursuits.
- You get sick because of working so much.
If you answered a lot of 5s or 4s, then you are considered as a workaholic. If you don’t stop being a workaholic today, tomorrow you may find yourself battling some health issues such as:
Obesity
Just because you are typing away on your keyboard for hours on end doesn’t mean that you have an active lifestyle — your lifestyle still counts as sedentary, say experts.
It’s exactly for this reason why you are at high risk of becoming obese, which is linked to a lot of health problems such as type 2 diabetes and the next one.
Heart Disease
Spending most of your waking hours slaving away at the office can be stressful. And since being a workaholic leaves you with no time to engage in stress-relieving activities, your stress level stays high.
Having high levels of stress can put you at high risk of suffering from deadly heart disease one day because it can cause your blood pressure to soar and your bad cholesterol levels to rise.
Chronic Pain
Being stressed all the time can also cause inflammation within you. This is the reason exactly why it’s not unlikely for you to experience all kinds of body aches and pains.
The fact that you are leading a sedentary lifestyle can increase your risk of having arthritis — having no exercise can cause the joints as well as the muscles that support them to weaken and thus susceptible to being damaged.
Weak Immune System
Aside from chronic pain, inflammation taking place inside your body
unnecessarily can also have a considerable effect on your immune system — it
can cause it to weaken.
With an immune system that’s not in an optimal shape, it’s not unlikely for you to frequently have the cold or flu. However, an upper respiratory tract infection cannot stop a workaholic like you from working.
Insomnia
Stress and also the fact that you cannot stop thinking about work even when you’re at home can cause sleep disruptions. So in other words, it’s not unlikely for you to enjoy a good night’s sleep each time.
Having circles under your eyes should be the least of your concerns if you have insomnia. Experts say that failure to get a restorative kind of sleep can affect your blood pressure and blood sugar levels, as well as cognitive functioning.
Anxiety and Depression
Long-term stress caused by being a workaholic is not only the physical kind, but also mental and emotional. It’s due to this why mental health experts say that a lot of workaholics are suffering from anxiety and depression.
Similarly, anxiety and depression can turn you into a workaholic — some people spend most of their time working in order to keep at bay their anxious or depressive feelings.
