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The following article was published in Your Health Magazine. Our mission is to empower people to live healthier.
Wayne Andersen, DO, MD
The Power Of Work-Life Balance
Optavia
. http://www.drwayneandersen.com

The Power Of Work-Life Balance

The American way is to prioritize work over everything else. If we're working hard, we feel successful, like we are relevant and like we matter. Long hours, in the American mind, are a signal that we are doing everything we can to take care of our families and to make our lives better.

Wanting to do right by your family is admirable, but we can't lose sight of what it actually means to be there for your family. Financial health is important, but an obsession with financial health or any area of health, really can detract from other, equally important facets of your health. If you're always at work, your relationships with your family and friends are likely to suffer because you are more likely to miss some of life's most important moments.

A lack of work-life balance can mean physical consequences as well. We already know that long work hours are typically associated with longer periods of seated inactivity, which in addition to the lack of healthy activity comes with a slew of health risks. If you're spending more time at work, you are less likely to have healthy meals on hand, so your fuelings tend to be processed fast food that's convenient. And then there's the long commute, which wears on mental health as well as physical health.

Work is necessary for our lives and even to our self-fulfillment to some degree, but ignoring the need to find balance can lead to serious consequences. According to a new study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, working more than 45 hours a week puts you at a greater and greater risk of heart disease.

You don't need to stop working or give up on your professional goals. That is not at all what this research should mean to you. Instead, the lesson in this research is what happens when you organize your life entirely around your work. If work is what matters most, then of course you will let your habits of health decline into habits of disease.

If you instead say to yourself that your work is important to you but so is your family and your own well-being, you set the stage for hitting the gym on your lunch break, opting out of picking up that extra project so you can spend a little more time at home, or perhaps considering a career change to cut back on the commute.

Work is admirable and important, but don't sacrifice every other aspect of your life for it. Create health in all areas instead.

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