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In many industries, people take pride in working long hours or completing huge amounts of work in a short time span. This practice isn’t sustainable and leads to productivity anxiety, burnout and stress. If you’re measuring your self-worth by how much time you’re putting in at the office, you could have fallen victim to a mindset known as toxic productivity. Here, we explore some warning signs of toxic productivity, why it’s bad for your health and well-being and how to overcome this negative mindset.
What Is Toxic Productivity?
Toxic productivity is a desire to be constantly productive. People who have fallen into this mindset find it almost impossible to relax. They feel guilty if they turn off their phones and go for a walk or spend an evening reading a fiction book. Every activity they engage in needs to be one that helps them work toward a larger goal.
Working long hours, for any reason, can be bad for your physical and mental health. However, long hours by themselves aren’t necessarily a sign of toxic productivity. If you’re able to relax and enjoy a vacation once the big project is over and you usually have a good work-life balance, you probably don’t have a toxic relationship with work.
Signs and Symptoms
So, how can you tell if you’ve crossed the line from being driven and motivated to having a toxic mindset? Some warning signs include:
- A constant desire to work long hours. If your boss is demanding that you work long hours, that’s an issue with your job. If you’re showing up early and leaving late by choice, think long and hard about why you’re so eager to put in extra time at the office.
- Setting yourself unrealistic targets. Goal setting can be a good way to motivate yourself. However, if you’re setting unreasonable goals and then feel bad about yourself if you fail to achieve them, that may be a red flag about your mindset.
- Feeling guilty if you take time for yourself. Avoiding unproductive activities and neglecting self-care in a bid to make more time to focus on work isn’t healthy. It’s normal to sometimes cut out recreational activities or spend a night or two eating takeout when you’re finishing a major project or stressed about your dissertation. But if those practices become a habit, they could lead to burnout or poor health.
- Feeling stressed or burned out. Frequent health problems, anxiety, depression and exhaustion are all signs of burnout. It’s possible to become burned out on any demanding activity, not just work. If you’re a caregiver, a parent or even a student and you’re neglecting your own well-being to focus on those things, the result could be burnout.
In the long term, toxic productivity can lead to stress, burnout, social isolation and anxiety. It can also increase a person’s risk of other health issues, especially if they’re neglecting their diet or not getting enough sleep.
Causes and Contributing Factors
According to a report published by Indeed, 67% of workers believe burnout is a bigger problem today than it was before the start of the pandemic. Some employees feel pressured to be productive constantly because they grew up in an environment that fostered that attitude. Either their parents pushed them to be overachievers or they had challenging childhoods in other ways and developed a drive to do well in work and school because they wanted to escape those difficulties.
Toxic productivity can also be a response to trauma. After a distressing event, some individuals bury themselves in their work as a means of escape. Finally, impostor syndrome can lead to productivity anxiety, creating a need to do more and work harder. Toxic workplaces where people are overly competitive or employees don’t feel secure in their jobs can also cause people to develop an unhealthy mindset, leading to burnout, stress and anxiety. People with impostor syndrome feel like their success was a fluke or that they don’t really know as much as people think they do, and they may worry that they’ll be “exposed” if they relax or take time off.
Breaking Free From Toxic Productivity
If you recognize yourself in some of the signs above and you’re wondering how to stop being toxic about your work or study habits, consider the following:
- Find a work-life balance. Set working hours and stick to them. If you aren’t paid to be on call, turn off your phone outside working hours. Train yourself to be productive during office hours, and take care of yourself the rest of the time.
- Set boundaries. Learning how to set boundaries at work can help reduce toxic behavior.
- Schedule breaks. You may find it helps you relax if you know you’ve planned for time off rather than it being something you take when you feel like it.
- Address the why. Think about why you’re feeling anxious. Do you have impostor syndrome? Are you worried about your job security? Addressing those underlying issues is the first step to controlling your mindset.
- Embrace the discomfort. When you first start trying to make changes in this area, it’s likely to feel uncomfortable and may even cause some anxiety. And that’s okay. Sitting with those feelings until they dissipate will teach your brain and body that nothing bad is going to happen from stepping back a bit.
Feeling overworked or having to put in some extra time occasionally is an unfortunate, but normal, part of working in some industries. However, if you’re constantly pushing yourself to work harder and find it difficult to take time off, you may have fallen into toxic patterns. Learning how to set boundaries and reframe your approach to your career could help.
At FHE Health, we offer counseling and therapies to support people with productivity anxiety. If you think you could benefit from a change in your mindset, contact us today to book an initial consultation.
