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Is the workplace killing us? Some stats from OSHA make it seem like it might be.
Workplace stress has been reported to cause 120,000 deaths in the US each year
Approximately 65% of U.S. workers surveyed have characterized work as being a very significant or somewhat significant source of stress in each year from 2019-2021
54% of workers report that work stress affects their home life
I remember my first official 9-5, Monday-Friday experience. I had a sort of mini, half internship, half field study class kinda deal for 6 weeks in New York City. I was essentially the content creator for an entrepreneur. This was fairly early days for blogging and social media. I created 5 pieces of content per day, and I was completely miserable. It felt like my body was screaming at me to get out of there. I dreaded going to work. I had so much anxiety that it was hard to fall asleep (never mind the honking all night in SoHo). The company was kind of rad, too. The guy was essentially a pop-up expert and would help connect event spaces to people who needed them. I got to attend some cool art shows and other functions. But this sitting still all day thing was insane.
I remember when I started working in advertising as well. I remember my eyes felt weird. Almost like they were sore from staring at a screen. I'd get headaches, too, and end the days just completely wiped despite essentially not moving all day.
Work is such a difficult thing. It's got components of choice but also components of survival. It's kind of like food. If you have a food addiction, you can't just quit eating. If work is the main cause of stress in your life and leads to anxiety and depression, you can't just quit working.
I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the number 1 driver of my anxiety and depression in my life after college has been my job. It's by far the largest contributor to stress in my life, outweighing pretty much everything else tenfold. It's a frequent culprit for sending me out of balance.
It was one of the most difficult things for me to get a handle on up until a couple of years ago. I had to touch the stove a couple (more than a couple) times to know what that imbalance felt like. I identified patterns. I start to get annoyed with my wife and coworkers. Then I start to get snippy with my wife, and take things personally from my coworkers. Then I have meltdowns and snap at my wife and coworkers. Then I have suicidal thinking and major depression. But I've touched the stove, and I know what imbalance feels like. As these warning signs start to arise, I can pivot before they get too far.
As always for me, it starts with the physical tools. Exercise, nutrition, sleep, sunlight, social connection and stress management through breathwork, sauna and cold plunging. Looking through that list, you might notice that work makes some of those things difficult.
Though vehicles, escalators and elevators aren't bad things, they do make it easy to hardly move all day. Though processed foods aren't necessarily bad things, they do make it easy to over consume calories. In the same way, the workplace is not inherently a bad thing. It just makes it easy to deprioritize movement, not get enough sunlight, eat cheap/unhealthy food and overload stress.
I've got a few recommendations that I use to help combat each of those pitfalls:
WalkingPad to get movement in during the work day
Work outside whenever possible.
Get a Verilux HappyLight to supplement bright light (not replace sunlight)
Learn how to cook easy, nutrient dense, highly satiating foods that make you feel good and you enjoy eating
Do breathwork to reduce stress
After we've got the physical tools locked in, we can start to look to mental tools. How can we change our perception of the things around us? What things do we not have control over that we can learn to accept? These are much more complex skills to learn that require plenty of practice. At the recommendation of a training organization our company partnered with, I read Extreme Ownership. About that same time was when my brother, Dad and I also read The Obstacle is the Way. These books both challenged me. In short (and leaving out a tremendous amount of nuance), Extreme Ownership was telling me that I am responsible for the circumstance that I am in. And The Obstacle is the Way was telling me that because my perception of whether something is good or bad is under my control, I am complicit in the creation of my work problems, because I have defined them as problems.
So began my journey of learning how to be comfortable in chaos.
One of the first realizations I had on this journey was that I was just as stressed and anxious when I was busy as when I was not busy. I eventually learned to accept that, and decided I'd prefer to be stressed and productive rather than stressed and bored. That's not exactly a happy ending, though. Over time, the fact that stress was inevitable made me downward spiral further.
Another realization, this one a bit more positive, was that I realized some of the hardest parts of my job and some of the biggest messes actually catapulted me forward. Whether it was people leaving, COVID, layoffs, super fast growth, mistakes or tidal waves of work, these things gave me problems to solve. They gave me opportunities to lead. They opened up positions for me to be promoted into. I got thrown into the deep end of the pool and had to fight for my life to stay afloat, but that made other problems seem easier, and I got pretty good at treading water.
Work has been my largest adversary for stress. But, it can't be my largest adversary without it being my largest catalyst for growth. In that way, I wouldn't be in this state of mental wellbeing without my job and the lessons I've learned along the way. The lesson from Extreme Ownership is that I am responsible for how I choose to respond in every situation and the wisdom I choose to gain from them. The lesson from The Obstacle is the Way is that I am not succeeding despite the challenges I'm facing at work, but because of them.
Over time, I've built the below compass for work.
Learn and know your limits. Set boundaries accordingly.
Work Hard
Constantly try to get better
Teach and learn. Train and be trained.
Delegate
Prioritize
Communicate
Treat people with love and respect
Stop short of losing your mind
I've gotten really comfortable existing within those guidelines. At the end of the day, can you really ask any more of someone who is doing those things?
So is the workplace killing us? It's not cut and dry. My answer is no, at least not directly. I think that it's just another component of our culture that makes certain habits easy to fall into.
Do you have any questions on this article? Do you have any topics you'd like to see covered in the future? Email me at jack@leaveitcinders.com and let me know!
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Affiliate disclosure:
CINDERS utilizes affiliate marketing, all of which are products I legitimately use and have purchased myself. I don't think you "need" any of these things, they've just provided a lot of value to me in my mental health journey. 10% of all revenue from all CINDERS, including affiliate sales, goes to mental health charity.
