How to stop thinking about work all the time

Why can't we get rid of our thoughts of work

If you are a workaholic, you are not alone. Majority of U. S. Poll Workers Think Traditional 9-to-5 is a Thing of the Past, Finds New CareerBuilder Survey by CareerBuilder found that 45% of all office workers continue to work in their free time, and 49% respond to emails whenever they want. came.

And these statistics do not yet reflect the number of those people who do not work after hours, but whose thoughts still revolve around their professional responsibilities.

This may be why burnout at work is so common. The Employee Burnout, Part 1: The 5 Main Causes study, which studied about 7,500 people, showed that at least 23% of respondents feel "burned out" all the time. Another 44% admitted that they also feel this state, but only from time to time.

Burnout can lead to dire consequences: from a drop in productivity of The Productivity of Working Hours to severe depression Overtime Work as a Predictor of Major Depressive Episode: A 5 ‑ Year Follow ‑ Up of the Whitehall II Study. And even worse. Another study, Long working hours and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: a systematic review and meta ‑ analysis of published and unpublished data for 603,838 individuals signals that people who are overworked are more likely to die at a young age due to coronary heart disease and stroke.

Some will say that working overtime and just thinking about work is not the same thing, and the latter is relatively harmless. But this is not the case.

The study Staying well and engaged when demands are high: The role of psychological detachment, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, examined the health effects of psychological withdrawal from office affairs during non-working hours. As it turned out, not thinking about professional tasks during hours free from them is an important factor for psychological and physical comfort.

In addition, another group of scientists found Extended work availability and its relation with start-of-day mood and cortisol, that the level of cortisol, the "stress hormone", increases in people who are required to constantly be in touch with their employer, compared with those who who can remain inaccessible outside the office. Such employees are more difficult to recover after a hard day and cannot fully rest. So, as you can see, just thinking about work can increase your stress levels.

How to stop thinking about work

1. Direct your energy to something else

Anyone who has ever tried to meditate knows how hard it is not to think about anything. The problem "Don't think about the monkey" is initially doomed to failure. Instead, try redirecting your thoughts in a different direction.

Take yoga, for example. Paint. Play board games with friends or children. Choose what you want.

The point is to direct your attention to a task that requires mental effort from you, but that has nothing to do with work. This is effective for two reasons.

First, it distracts your brain from thinking about work. Psychologist Art Markman writes for the Harvard Business Review:

Trying to get used to “not thinking about work in your free time” is impossible because your brain cannot help but think. You can only get into a habit when you do a particular action - you cannot get used to avoiding action. Instead, make yourself a plan for what you will do instead of work. Get involved in personal development, drawing, learning languages, or playing an instrument.

Art Markman

Second, our brains are not very good at multitasking. Research on Motivated Multitasking: How the Brain Keeps Tabs on Two Tasks at Once shows that, in principle, you can still think about two unrelated things at the same time. But still, if in your free time you burden yourself with some kind of hobby or hobby, there is a better chance that the mind will forget about work tasks.

2. Create a plan and follow it

How does your working day usually end? You close dozens of accumulated browser tabs, look at your to-do list, note unfinished items to yourself and feel frustrated about it. And then walk away, continuing to reflect on what is to be done tomorrow.

But there is a better way to end the work day so that you don't have to worry about the undone later. It's simple: before you leave, make a plan for tomorrow.

It may seem illogical: you already have a bunch of unfulfilled tasks, and here you are offered to write them down on a separate piece of paper. But science proves that the plan really takes the head off.

In the study Successfully leaving work at work: Theself-regulatory underpinnings of psychologicaldetachment at Ball State University in Indiana, some of the subjects were obliged to draw up a plan in which they indicated when and how they would complete their unfinished tasks. The other half of the participants did not. As a result, those who wrote the plan suffered less from obsessive thoughts about the upcoming business.

Try to put your tasks out of your head on paper. Or write them down to some task manager.

3. Spend less time with your gadgets

Thanks to modern technologies, we are constantly in touch with our employers, and this fact does not particularly help to forget about business on weekends. For example, the average employee of Americans Don’t Want to Unplug from Phones While on Vacation, Despite the Latest Digital Detox Trend checks their phone every 12 minutes, even on vacation!

Therefore, limit the time you spend looking at your mail and checking your messages. Special applications for iOS and Android will help you with this. And on your PC, you can turn off notifications or activate Do Not Disturb during the weekend.

4. Stop Complaining

For many of us, the start of the day looks the same. We chat with colleagues about our frustrations, annoying moments, injustice, overly strict bosses and other troubles.

You are stuck with your difficult project, and the boss is not helping you in any way. You feel like the only one on the team who does something. And the worst thing: Zhenya from the marketing department cannot understand that there is no need to click on the "Reply all" button in every email, and your inbox is littered with her correspondence.

Complaining doesn't help; it only increases stress and makes you think back to work at the worst possible time.

Lots of research The Relationships between Co-Rumination, Social Support, Stress, and Burnout among Working Adults; Co-ruminating increases stress hormone levels in women suggest that verbalizing your anger and frustration only increases it. In addition, among your colleagues, you may be known as an eternally disgruntled whiner.

So contain your discontent. You can try "expressive writing": write down the worrying thoughts on a piece of paper and throw it away. Experts from Harvard and Ohio University confirm Writing about emotions may ease stress and trauma; Bothered by negative, unwanted thoughts? Just throw them away, that this ritual really helps to throw away negative thoughts and refrain from them in the future. Paper is cheaper than a psychologist, but the therapeutic effect is evident!

Use these four tactics and your brain will finally stop working overtime.