Pillar 2: Work-Life Stress with our Wellness Services

Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.

Work - Life Balance Myths and Reality

The concept of work-life balance has been with us for many years, with a main theme of how we prioritize and allocate time to our work obligations and our family life commitments where we get a sense of "balance." And as expected, the articles, books, self-help manuals, web sites, social medias, "life coaches, "and workshops are endless on how a person can learn to rearrange their life so there is a sense of "balance" between work life and personal life. This in turn has over the years led many to believe that the key factor is time management, in other words, how much time you don't do work stuff and how much time you do personal stuff to get that sense of balance. In short, how can we be more mindful to regularly engage with hobbies, play, family holidays and equally as well, unplug from work texting, late night conference calls, attending to client emails, and maintaing the "hard working employee" image. However, the facts have been clear for many generations: we spend more waking hours at work than at home and in our personal lives, thus the promise of finding a 50/50 work-life balance is not only unrealistic, it also adds further stress to the already work-life integration world we live in. Furthermore in many (if not most) work cultures around the world, research has shown even in these modern times with amazing seamless - continuously available technologies at our fingertips (literally), we continue to spend more waking hours at work than with our families and friends and children study more with their academic pursuits thru and with technology than play and socialize. In short, we must now find a mind-body-brain sense of healthy harmony with our modern work(school)-life integration existence. At our practice Dr Mark teaches all our clients how to achieve as best as they can a work-life harmony state of wellness.

She Loves Her Job More Than Her Family

With time being the universal measurement tool for work - life balance in the past, a common relationship stressor has been the complaint when one partner spends "more time at the office than at home." This in turn has caused many to feel "she loves her job more than her family." Our 42 years of clinical experience and general research highlights there are actually three trigger points for work - life conflict with individuals, couples and families: energy demands, time demands and behavioral demands. With respect to time demands, the most common trigger for work - life conflict arises more from the changing and expanding demands from the work environment that spills over into the personal home world. As highlighted earlier, with the spread of technology across our work-home environment, our Work - Life Integration services guides our clients to seek better insight on the "blurring of boundaries" between work and home time demands and how to establish boundaries to reduce stress and sustain work - life harmony. Concurrently, energy demands does have certain elements of time demand stressors, but what makes energy demands a unique trigger for stress and relationship (home and work) conflict is the lack of insight with micro and macro life skills for energy management. A key requirement here we support our clients with energy management is developing a lifestyle pattern of sleep, physical activity, and nutrition programs found in our Four Pillars Wellness Program. Behavioral demands on the other hand (which includes certain time and energy demand stressors) has many consequences to the work - life integration environment, with technology-based behaviors being a key point for stress and relationship conflict. A good example would be the spouse who is frequently seen "checking his emails" when on holiday. Our behavior demands - behavior management skills we teach our clients arises from an evidence-based wellness approach that actually increases our healthspan, lifespan and happyspan spaces in life: intentionally employing positive behaviors with exercise, sleep and nutrition for work - life integration where eventually stress goes down and good moods increase. It was said by a politician long before we understood this more deeply in science, but Abraham Lincoln had it right: "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. and that's my religion . . ."

Nothing Left in the Tank at Home

The World Health Organization (WHO) life - course approach to health has influenced us at the Centre for Stress Management, especially in the Work - Life Stress pillar within our four pillars of wellness services. A theme we are very much aware of in Work - Life Stress is the fact contemporary employment practices have fewer and fewer individuals spending their entire careers in one organization. Consequently, more and more employees are changing employers and sometimes even career paths during their forty to fifty years of adult working life. This in turn has a growing (positive and negative) impact on stress management with our work - life integration in a growing common scenario: as an employee is settling into his current job he may also at the same time have one eye on another job several months or years down the road. As one can imagine this has a direct impact on time, energy and behavior management demands both at work and at home that often does not get addressed in stress counselling. In other words, an area we often overlook in work - life issues in counselling for example is how a person's energy management is being stressed due to performing and maintaining a current job as they expedite depleting energy levels in seeking future employment that in turn impacts the remaining energy at the end of the day for personal and home life. In short, there's is probably a lot more behind the common statement "he has no time or energy for us when he gets home" than meets the naked eye.

Its More Than About The Hours

A common misperception about work - life balance is that the main focus is all about the hours (or time): how much time you spend at work and how much time you spend with your family and friends. A key concern from a time management perspective is the long working day, the work commute and time for rest and sleep that leaves little time for personal socializing and play/hobbies. As we have highlighted to the right of this page, we also need to be mindful of how we manage our time, energy and behaviors with the "I" world (things we do alone), the "We" world (with our life partner) and the "Us" world (with our life partner, children, relatives, friends and community). Attempting to divide your life into three "balanced" or equal portions is simply not possible, one area of your life will have more time - energy commitment than the other two. Hence, our Four Pillars Wellness Program provides insight to our clients how to integrate their work - life time, energy and behavior demands that keeps stress and conflict to a minimum.

Work-Life Stress Integration is not about splitting time, it's about employing harmonious - kind intentional behaviours for the self and others so our work fuels our financial stability/work performance and our home nurtures our authentic self so we wake-up in our best version every day.

The Centre for Stress Management has four main pillars for our wellness services: Work-Life Stress Integration, Physical Activity - Nutrition, Sleep, and Thought - Emotion Regulation. Our wellness services are carefully designed where the most common cause of healthcare issues is addressed: stress that impacts all our four pillars of wellness. Dr Mark's 42 years of experience has been shown over the years stress management (knowing the what is it and how to deal with it) not only improves work and personal life performance, but it also reduces relationship/work conflict and enhances resilience for work - life harmony. Email us on info@stresshk.com and see how we can improve your work - life integration lifestyle that will improve your daily well-being and overall quality of life.