Help for Workaholics
It is especially easy for many of us to get hooked on the challenges of a job or career, because attachment to a career is so highly valued in our society. While “workaholism” can sometimes mask home or personal problems and basic insecurities, most often it is an addiction to the adrenalin surges brought on by challenge and competition.
Competition is part of our way of life. Schools and businesses depend on and utilize the high that a challenge can create. But there is a black lining to this euphoric could. Stanley Sunderwirth, a prominent biochemist says we are “drugging ourselves” into an artificial existence. The short-term effect is pleasure—but the long term effect may well be stress disease.
However, it is never too late to start controlling the abuse of your body’s defense system. Even if you are an adrenalin addict with advanced heart disease – or you have already experienced a heart attack—you can promote healing and prevent further damage by learning to manage the behavior that creates the problem in the first place.
Each of us needs to discover the specific adrenalin-reducing tactics that work best to relax the mind and body. Many people have found the following tips helpful:
1. Talk audibly to yourself. Tell yourself to calm down, to quit acting as if life were a 100-meter dash. Remind yourself that you are just a part of a bigger whole. If you stop playing Messiah, you will have considerable less stress.
2. Practice conscious physical relaxation. You must allow your body to unwind so that healing and restoration can take place. One way to help your body relax is to exercise regularly. Appropriately tailored to age and level of fitness, exercise can improve not only your physical health but also your mood and general feeling of self-esteem.
3. Remember that frantic behavior does not guarantee success. Though society sometimes rewards us for hurriedness, real happiness and long-term success in a job or at home come only from keeping everything in proper perspective.
4. If you feel you must succeed in the situation before you, ask yourself, “Is the price I must pay really worth the benefit?” The answer will probably restore a sense of balance and remind you of long-term goals and values.
5. Learn to deliberately slow down. Develop the ability to choose to go slow when you need to. What’s the real hurry? Few friends, fellow workers, or superiors will increase their respect for you because you hurry. If anything, most would be more trusting if you slow down.
6. Quickly resolve those emotions that are adrenalin “biggies”: anger, resentment, frustration, irritation, and excitement. Apologize if you are wrong. Bury your hurts that are a result of oversensitivity or cruelty.
7. Review your life goals. Ask, “Is the challenge before me absolutely necessary to my life goal?” Consider carefully if this quest will eventually build you up or just destroy you.
8. Look closely at the faces of those around you. Do they seem like friends or foes? Are you forgetting that they are people also, with right, longings, aspirations, with a need for love? Have you slowed down enough to really understand you children? Do everyone a favor by easing up your demands on them. When you do, a sense of peace will be restored.
9. Relax your expectations and take time to enjoy the world around you. Recover your total personality and poise. Try to be gracious, and keep your perspective about what is really important and necessary.
Copyright © 11/29/2009 Athena Goodlight (Socyberty)
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