We have all heard sayings like “don’t stop when you’re tired, stop when you’re done,” “let them sleep while you grind,” “I’ve got a dream that’s worth more than my sleep” and of course Steve Harvey’s famous quote “rich people don’t sleep 8 hours a day.”
While at first glance these quotes may seem motivational, I believe they are extremely detrimental to our society and the way we view work. I find it upsetting that society glorifies people getting less than eight hours of sleep, while sleep is quite literally an essential function every human being needs to function properly. Cleary, less sleep does not equate to more success and will only incite a dangerous cycle of burning out. As a society, especially in North America, I believe we are going down a dangerous path of neglecting our physical, emotional and mental health, all for the sake of school or work.
This all ties into the feeling of burnout, which I have experienced many times. The main signs that you may be experiencing burnout are usually physical, behavioural and emotional. Physical signs of burnout could be that you are feeling unmotivated, drained, tired, your appetite has changed, you have muscle aches and you find yourself getting sick easily. Behavioural signs include isolating yourself from friends and family, procrastinating, abusing substances and over or under eating. Emotional signs include when you find you get stressed or irritable a lot easier or you start finding it harder to gain the same satisfaction over things you used to enjoy.
As a result of burnout, we see people with higher stress hormones, blood pressure and less antibodies to combat illness. The tendency to dedicate ourselves to work and glamourize long hours in today’s culture remains as prevalent and inescapable as ever. People are resorting to a large amount of caffeine, Adderall, alcohol, nicotine and other substances on a daily basis just to cope with the stress they feel because they’re working from the second they wake up to the second they go to bed with barely any breaks.
These days, I find many people are living to work instead of working to live. They have no balance between work or school and other aspects of their life. They are stressed, anxious, burnt-out and have declining mental health due to their companies or schools demanding so much from them. I see this especially with university, where we have midterms and exams on weekends. In one of my previous semesters, I had seven midterms, one every week, and they all fell on Fridays or the weekends. Looking back at this, it was so unacceptable. Not only do we need to attend class and work through the weekdays, but now students are not even getting a break to relax during the weekends. We also see people working over 80 hours a week, where they have no extra time to cook, spend time with family or friends or relax. All they do is work and sleep and repeat. Is this really the life we want to be living?
I think it is time we admit that overworking is overrated and dangerous. We need to stop glorifying it, and instead acknowledge that companies and educational institutions should be considering their students and workers’ health. Sleep, relaxation, spending time with family, having time to cook and clean and being able to have hobbies outside of school or work are equally as important as school and work itself. The next time you find yourself trying to give up sleep, working out or spending quality time with your friends, just to push yourself past your breaking point doing work, ask yourself: is it really worth your health in the long term?