Workaholism is a negative addiction to work. This term appeared in the early 20th century but became to be taken seriously only about 15 years ago. It means that a person continues working for many hours, even if he experiences serious health problems. It becomes a kind of obsession. In fact, workaholism is a dangerous medical problem connected with stress and obsessive-compulsive disorder that can lead even to lethal consequences.
Read these symptoms of workaholism and check whether you suffer from it:
- You think only about work and consider it to be the most important part of your life.
- You feel depression and don’t know what to do without a work.
- You have some health problems (anxiety, insomnia, heart diseases).
- You work at nights and on weekends very often.
- You are a perfectionist (set very high or unrealistic expectations to yourself).
- You always find one more task to do (even if it’s not obligatory or needed at all).
How to cope with the phenomenon of workaholism? First of all, a person should understand that he really has a problem that is like the alcoholism. Also the difficulty lies in the distinguishing between a hard work (hardworking people do their job in a special and limited time for this activity) and this disease (workaholics can’t stop working). Someone just can’t do this alone and needs specialist’s consultations and support. In any case, “a patient” should make breaks during the working day and have a real rest, create a schedule, change the values and limit the number of planned assignments.
Workaholism is extremely critical for such people’s families. They devote all the time to their jobs only and don’t pay attention to their dearest ones. Misunderstandings, scandals and divorces are the logical results of it. To deal with it couples should attend a mutual therapy