Leave The Office At The Office
It really isn’t a surprise that bringing your work home with you can increase stress and lead to sleep issues. Most of us can surmise that computer work, with a bright LED light blazing in your face for an hour before you go to bed isn’t the best preparation for a good night’s sleep.
People Play A Role
But what about the stuff that goes on at work during the day? Do you work with great people? (like the Fawcett Team!) Or are there rude and disrespectful people cluttering up your life?
Emotional Impact of Toxic Experiences
It turns out, the emotional ‘toll’ that toxic behaviour experienced in some work places, can also wreak havoc on your sleep habits. While we probably know this anecdotally, there is a recent study, by the American Psychological Association that delved deeper into “Workplace Incivility and Employee Sleep: The Role of Rumination and Recovery Experiences” – Yes, it’s a heavy duty research paper, not the most friendly reading. But hey, that’s why you’re here right? We’ll give you the ‘Coles notes’.
(This guy below is angry because someone was mean to him at work. Not good!)
The summary findings were;
“Employees with the highest levels of recovery experiences (better able to detach psychologically and relax after work) sleep better, even in the face of workplace incivility.
This provides empirical support for the importance of attending to workplace conditions and promoting positive affective conditions as a means to maintain and improve employee well-being and subsequent performance.”
Sleep Deprivation Costs Employers
So, one of the key points is that people whom were able to “detach” more fully from work after hours, were subsequently more able to deal with rumination. (negative experiences that you’re not able to let go of). Employers should take note. These issues and negative environments at work, cost your company dearly in many ways.
- When your employees are sleep deprived this is costly for the company on many levels.
- Sleep deprivation is estimated to cost the US Economy $400 Billion / year
- There are direct & real costs associated with a negative work environment outside of sleep loss
It's All About Balance
The other problem area of “bringing work home” which most of us are all-too-familiar with, is checking work emails at home often. We need proper boundaries between work and life balance – the down time to recharge our batteries and recover – otherwise, studies show that those employees who scored high on work-to-life integration reported less recovery activities and in turn were more exhausted and experienced less work-life balance and well being.
So, put down the device, email will be there for you tomorrow. In fact, while we’re on our rant, we did discover some articles about some really innovative ways to be less tied to email. (remember the old days, when there was no email? Things still got done)
…our next post. How to deal with email. Hey – it’s going to help you sleep better, right? Oh, that and an amazing Fawcett Mattress.