LIFESTYLE NEWS - Could we be overthinking work-life balance issues, and could it be to the detriment of our health?
The quest for a work-life balance
An Oregon State University (OSU) study has found that thinking over and over again about conflicts between your job and personal life is likely to damage both your mental and physical health.
The study included more than 200 people, with results showing that "repetitive thought" was a pathway between work-family conflict and negative outcomes in six different health categories.
Repetitive thought regarding work-family conflict refers to thinking repeatedly and attentively about the parts of your job and your personal life that clash with each other: for example, that late-afternoon meeting that prevents you from attending your son's baseball game. It's a maladaptive coping strategy that impedes daily recovery from stress.
Lead author Kelly D. Davis Davis, an assistant professor in the OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences School of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, says repetitive thought over work-family conflict keeps the stressor active and thus gets in the way of recovery.
A mindful solution
One technique that can help is mindfulness. This means intentionally paying attention to the present-moment experience, such as physical sensations, perceptions, affective states, thoughts and imagery, in a non-judgemental way.
"You stay in the moment and acknowledge what you are feeling, recognise that those are real feelings, and process them, putting things in perspective," Davis said. "In the hypothetical baseball game example, the person could acknowledge the disappointment and frustration he was feeling as legitimate, honest feelings, and then also think in terms of 'these meeting conflicts don't happen that often, there are lots of games left for me to watch my child play, etc.'"
