The Toxic Effects Of Working From Home On Your mental Health And How To Deal With Them:
Tags: Burnout, Working From Home

The idea of remote work has earned quite the buzz lately, and it undoubtedly has a lot to boast of. Working from home allows you to knock over those laborious numbers in your pajamas while munching on your favorite snack. It grants more flexibility and reduces the stress of daily commuting. In addition, if you’re a solopreneur or freelancer, your work life is not defined by the signature frown of an unreasonable boss. But is it all beer and skittles?

While remote work offers more balance in life than a corporate environment, one should be cognizant of its negative mental health effects.

This post takes a look at the psychological effects of remote work, and how you can make sure your home doesn’t become a place where the only thing you do is work.

Isolation:

Working in isolation, without human connection and the support of a team to raise your morale can be demotivating for anyone. After all, one of the best ways to deal with a vexing client or a particularly bedeviling project is to have a ranting session with a friendly colleague, so they can calm your frayed nerves by patting you on the back. As a remote worker, however, the pat will only ever come from you, and sometimes, it may not come at all. This may turn the solitude of remote work into a stifling loneliness, which exacerbates feelings of anxiety and stress, injuring the spirit of your passion and making you weary of work.

No disconnect between work and home:

The flexibility of remote work can obscure the line between your home and office life. You may find yourself taking naps at irregular hours, which can lead to feelings of guilt and the temptation to hustle harder than ever.

Productivity guilt feasts on your free time, thriving on the feeling of crossing things on your to-do-list. If taken with a grain of salt, productivity guilt turns into this shame-inducing voice in your head, incessantly pushing you to do more, to do better no matter how much you’re doing already.

The absence of a line between work and home can also tempt you to work at odd hours, leading to unhealthy schedules and sleep problems.

Multiple Roles:

As a remote worker, you’re never just a remote worker. You’ve to be your own marketer, invoice manager, IT troubleshooter, and all the roles that are complementary with your line of work. Constantly switching between these roles can take a serious toll on your mental health.

Back to Back Meeting: Platforms like Zoom have made back to back meetings a walk in the park and several organizations are taking full advantage of it, determined to send that productivity graph shooting towards the sky. However, attending several meetings in a row can be draining for anyone, let alone hustle-geared remote workers.

Burnout:

Chronic work stress, when not dealt with properly on time, can lead to burnout, leading to exhaustion, irritability, cynicism and anxiety. These feelings cause you to dread work, making you question your self-worth.

Burnout is very common in remote workers as the pressure to hustle 24/7 and be as productive as possible constantly keeps your sympathetic nervous system, also known as flight or fight mode, hyperactive.

How To Keep Your Mental Health In Check When Working From Home:

Though remote work can have negative effects on your wellbeing, the good news is they’re all manageable. With a little tweaking, you can see what works for you and enjoy a healthy work life.

1)Create a schedule and stick to it: One of the reasons why remote work has been gaining so much popularity over the years is because of the flexibility it offers. As a freelancer or solopreneur, you are not restricted to a cubicle in an overcrowded office. You can work from wherever you want, at whatever time you find suitable.

This, however, does often mess up your routine. You end up sleeping at odd hours, the guilt of which can pressurize you to work till 4:00 in the morning.

To avoid jeopardizing your sleep schedule, create a schedule or a list of daily goals. These will prepare you for the tasks you need to get done and prevent you from the temptations of working more than necessary.

A tight sleep schedule will also ensure you don’t dedicate your nights to those unanswered emails and unsolicited worries.

2)Join a community of like-minded people

Social interaction is as important as cognitive therapy, especially for remote workers, who generally lack team support.

If you feel unmotivated all the time even though you love what you do for a living, join a community of like-minded people.

Such support groups are easy to find on platforms like LinkedIn, Medium or Twitter. You can even create your own blog and build a community of people who work from home.

3) Do Not Work On Weekends

While most motivational gurus will advise you to not ‘waste’ your precious weekends on movies, dinner parties and family gatherings, remember that weekends were proposed for a reason.

They are the perfect way to unwind a hectic week and give your mind a healthy break from work.

If you’re working on weekends, pressurized by the fact that you’re at home and should be engaging in productive activities, you’ll only burn yourself out.

Make plans. Meet up with your favorite people. Binge that trending Netflix show you’ve wanted to watch for a while. Relax.

4. Build an aesthetically pleasing workplace at home

As cozy as working in bed may feel, you need a proper workplace to get your creative juices flowing and to be more focused.

Build a simple but aesthetic workplace at home. Decorate it with wall hangings, photo frames, your favorite motivational quotes, and perhaps a couple of prickly plants. Keep it clean and organized.

Habits take time to develop and they respond to a particular cue. A cue is something that triggers your mind to enter the habit loop. Your workplace can serve as a cue so that you don’t have to spend two hours on Facebook, preparing your mind for work.

Conclusion:

Though the effects of working from home on your mental health are undeniably harmful, these tips will allow you to create a healthy balance between your home and work life.

If you’ve been a hustler for quite a while, it might take you some time to accept the simple pleasures of life. Just make sure you eat the elephant one bite at a time, and you’ll be fine.