Work Life Imbalance
You hear it all the time. We must balance our work with our personal lives to find that optimal work life balance. Unfortunately for many of us work IS life. That reminds me of those motivational shirts from the 90s: “Baseball is life, the rest is just details…” I don’t remember if they had one for work, but if they did, I doubt it sold well. That’s not something people like to advertise.
The 2008 Sleep Institute Survey from the American College of Chest Physicians shows some alarming stats in the never-ending battle of work life balance. Work is killing us.
The poll shows that the American’s work day is now 9 hours and 28 minutes. The average time spent sleeping is now only 6 hours and 40 minutes. That translates to an accumulation of 1 hour 20 minutes of sleep debt each night for the average adult. So what are we doing for those 5 hours and 6 minutes we have to ourselves each night? You guessed it - working!
The poll shows more than half of Americans (58%) are bringing work home to complete at night. In fact, 20 percent spend more than ten hours a week doing job-related activities at home.
It’s no wonder why many of us suffer from a lack of sleep due to stress and anxiety. It seems we work ourselves exhausted and then worry about not getting everything done, then sacrificing the little time we have to sleep.
This study should serve as a wake up call to many of us. It is essential that we work in an adequate amount of sleep into our schedules to prevent productivity loss and sickness.
How many hours of sleep do you get each night?
