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Addicted to Work?

When work gets the best of one's time, energy and imagination, when nothing is left over for friends, spouse, children or oneself, work is an addiction.

Workaholism may seem a recent phenomenon, brought about by the relentless pace of modern civilisation, but in reality workaholics have always existed. In Roman times, Pliny the Elder, the famous writer and statesman, used to start his working day at midnight and have books read to him at mealtimes so that he didn't have to stop working.

The impact of workaholism:

Workaholics are often surprised when friends or family ask for more attention or time. After all, they are working hard and providing so well. The work addict will say he or she has "no choice" - the time they give to work is the time required to do and keep a good job.

There is no doubt that there is great value in hard work. Work can be a source of great satisfaction, and one's employer has every right to expect efficiency and good results. Workaholics tend to be well organised and thorough, energetic and self-motivated. They are able to focus exclusively on what they are doing at the moment.

A point to remember is that most of the great things that have been done throughout history have been done by people who put more effort into their work than most. However, what makes work abusive or addictive, as opposed to healthy or constructive is the degree to which it interferes with physical health, personal happiness, or intimate and social relationships. In some ways, overworking is harder to kick than the other addictions because it is the only one that draws applause.

Long hours, with little relief, generally lead to less productivity or inefficiency, neglected family and social life and distorted concepts of what's important and what's not. In the name of doing their job, workaholics may neglect personal relationships, parenting responsibilities, even their own health.

Relationships require a certain amount of time and attention to keep them alive and to keep us emotionally nourished, as well. The workaholic fits relationships around the work schedule, and if work takes all the time then there are no relationships, except on the most casual basis.

A national study conducted in 1999 in the United States found that women married to workaholics felt more estranged from their husbands, had less positive feelings toward them, and felt in less control of their lives than a comparison group of women married to non-workaholics. This study suggests that workaholism, like alcoholism and other addictions, takes a severe toll on marriages.

Work addicts can be so busy working that they miss the process of growth and development in their children. Their children see them as strangers, resent the abandonment and frequently act out. The children may eventually find themselves in trouble, at which point one hears the parent say "Where did I go wrong? I gave them everything."

When work-addiction takes over, basic needs for sleep, proper food, exercise and freedom to refresh the mind and restore the spirit are ignored. It is not uncommon for health problems to crop up.

And because the person's identity is so wrapped up in work, losing a job or even retirement becomes a major calamity. Since they have never developed a life apart from work, without a job they are faced with total emptiness - exactly what they tried so hard to avoid.

What can one do about workaholism?

• Gradually cut down the number of excessive hours you work each day or week. Avoid radical changes, but take measurable steps (If that means you have to cut your workload proportionally by skipping unimportant tasks or delegating some work, so be it.) Learn to focus on results rather than hours spent at the office.
  
• Schedule time for your primary relationship. Most relationships require at least 20-30 minutes of "connect time" every day. This time is spent simply checking in with, and catching up with one another.
  
• Plan time for recreation in your schedule as though it were an important commitment. (It is.) Set aside some time for fun, however brief, every day.
  
• Get some physical exercise every day. Take a walk, do some stretching, or participate in some other non-stressful, non-competitive activity.
  
• Avoid talking work over lunch.
  
• Select leisure activities carefully. You need at least one activity you can share with family or friends.
  
• Refuse to feel guilty when you're not working. After pursuing other activities, you'll return

Food can be our miracle medicine

Make no mistake about it, eating is not a trivial event for the billions upon billions of cells that constitute your being. As scientists, for the first time in human history, have begun to vigorously investigate and appreciate, the act of eating is of great consequence, a communion with nature that promotes life or death. The choice is increasingly ours, as new scientific discoveries uncover the enormous impact of our every day diet on our prospects for health and longevity.
New research shows that food can bestow health and vigor, freeing us of minor discomforts and protecting us from devastating diseases. Or it can make us ill and miserable.
Food can quicken the brain and lift out mood. It can infuse our brains with spurts of electrical energy that make us think faster and perform better. It can quite our distress as surely as a prescription tranquilizer can, or it can make us drowsy and play havoc with our concentration. It can pull us out of depression or reduce us to panic. Food can set in progress silent attacks that erode our joints and clog our arteries – and it can help reverse the damage. The type of food we eat as children or young adults may subtly alter our brain chemistry, leaving us in middle age the victims of muscle-destroying multiple sclerosis or in old age with the tremors of Parkinson’s disease.
Food can promote aberrant activity within cells that years later end up as cancerous growth. Conversely, food can release agents that literally vaporize cancer-causing chemicals or extinguish chain reactions of molecules that roar through the body, ripping apart the membranes of healthy cells corrupting their genetic good intentions or leaving them to die. Even after abnormal cell growth. Have emerged on their way to becoming cancer, food can cause them to shrink or disappear. Or when the wandering cells from a breast cancer are scouting for new places to attach and grow, foods’ emissaries can create a hostile surface that can be colonized by cancer cells.
The list is endless. There hardly a health problem or natural body process that is not influenced in some fashion by the substances you put in your mouth. Food is redefined a powerful medicine – medicine you can use in preventing and curtailing diseases of all kinds and in boosting mental and physical energy, vigor and well being.
Andrew Weil, M.D. Natural Health, Natural Medicine has aptly said – “Diet has the distinction of being the only major determinant of health that is completely under your control. You have the final say over what does and does not go into mouth and stomach. You cannot always control the other determinants of health, such as quality of the air you breathe, the noise you are subjected to, or the emotional climate of your surroundings, but you cannot control what you eat. It is a shame to squander such a good opportunity to influence your health”.