Are You A Workaholic?

Carl Lowe | Feb 12, 2013 | Comments 0

Today’s world is custom made for the workaholic. Your cell phone lets you check email on a Ferris wheel. Your laptop or tablet allows you to create a spreadsheet even when you’re spread out on a towel at the beach. Wireless technology means never having to say you’re sorry because you’re unreachable.

But the stress of never taking a break from work can make you more susceptible to infection, cancer, heart disease, gum disease… to just about everything. And work addiction has been associated with insomnia, health problems, burnout and stress as well as creating conflict between work and family life, according to researcher Cecilie Schou Andreassen of the psychology department of the University of Bergen, Norway.

To measure how well you’re doing on controlling work and stress, Andreassen and her colleagues put together a quick, seven-statementquiz to provide insight into your work habits. To take the quiz, characterize each of these statements with (1) Never, (2) Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4) Often, or (5) Always.

If you answer “always” or “often” to four or more of these, you need to slow down your work life and take more vacations:

• You think of how you can free up more time to work.
• You spend much more time working than you intend.
• You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness and depression.
• You have been told by others to cut down on work but you ignored their advice.
• You become stressed if you are can’t work.
• You deprioritize hobbies, leisure activities and exercise because of your work.
• You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health.