What is toxic productivity and how to deal with it

Toxic productivity or workaholism has become a way of life people across geographies. But it is doing more harm than good to people’s mental, physical, social and emotional health.

Do you have persistent 12-hour workdays? Do you find yourself turning down invitations from friends, neglecting healthcare appointments or joking about taking a hiatus from exercise? Are there times that you feel like going out and letting loose, but when you decide to go, something crops up in your mind about your pending projects? If you always feel agitated about the idea of not falling behind others and staying on top of the game every day by working beyond your limits, it is time that you consider hitting pause. In today’s times, people glorify the idea of hustle culture where people believe in working relentlessly to achieve success. But little do we all realise how harmful toxic productivity or workaholism can be for our overall health.

What is toxic productivity?

Toxic productivity can be described as an irresistible and uncontrollable urge to be productive at all times and all costs. Mind you, this can be detrimental to your mental and physical health. You can be called as engaged in toxic productivity if you feel pressured to be constantly productive and occupied and feel guilty while taking pleasure in resting or ‘doing nothing’. Your productivity can be called toxic if you are prioritising work at the expense of your mental and physical health and even your relationships.

Productivity is good, but when productivity becomes so much that it affects your relationships and health, it becomes toxic. Everything is good when it is limited to a certain extent in balance.

Sometimes, people become workaholics under the guilt of relaxing and also not being able to hit their targets. Having very high expectations from themselves and having unrealistic goals also leads to a person becoming work-oriented which can be extremely damaging to health leading to issues like burnout, anxiety, or depression. This leads to toxic productivity, explains psychologist and psychotherapist Priyanka Kapoor.

Warning signs of toxic productivity

Some of the warning signs of toxic productivity include:

Why toxic productivity can be harmful for your health?

When we overwork regularly, it will not only affect our mental health but can also harm our relationships, physical health, growth, and productivity. Here are some ways in which toxic productivity can hamper the quality of our lives:

1. May affects relationships

Toxic productivity can affect your relationship with your staff, seniors as well family. As you have more working hours and high expectations, you may get disturbed if those expectations are not met, leading to the development of negative feelings and attitudes. You may also gradually lack empathy and focus only on your goals, ignoring others’ needs. This will create more issues in mental and physical health eventually, says the expert. While being too focused on our work, we try to brush everything aside, even our close relationships. Due to extreme stress, we tend to turn cold towards everyone’s feelings around us.

2. Personal growth

When we are just focused on getting everything done on the professional front, everything else in life takes a backseat, even our most sought-after hobbies. Having leisure activities, learning something new, meditation, self-reflection or any other higher purpose in life may also be neglected if there is toxic productivity and that will eventually affect your health.

3. Physical health

Extreme work leads to overuse of our mind and chronic stress can show up as physical symptoms in our body. “People who are stuck in the loop of toxic productivity may get sleep deprivation, high blood pressure, addiction, hypertension or diabetes due to too much work stress,” says the expert.

Also read: 5 alarming signs that your workplace is toxic for your mental health

4. Increased loneliness

Due to toxic productivity, many people also get lonely as they do not get time to indulge in relationships and are only busy achieving targets. Even though such people attain success in their professional lives, their personal life gets disturbed and neglected, creating a rift in their close relationships. This again affects mental and physical health.

How do you break toxic productivity?

When you are living an uncertain life, it is easy to channel discomfort into being productive. However, this approach brings no good in the long run and can lead to issues like burnout or constant fatigue. As humans, our body demands rest to deal with our emotions and stay connected to our loved ones. And when you give yourself this gift of time, you will notice that more creativity and positive energy will flow into your life, allowing you to step closer to success in the long term.

Here, we outline 6 effective ways to break the cycle of toxic productivity:

1. Physical health

When you make time for yourself, it will pay you back in the form of good health. And, any person enjoying good physical health will be able to work more and achieve more in life. Make sure that you prioritize your physical health like diet and exercise like yoga, meditation, or hitting the gym which increases positive hormones and resilience, suggests the expert.

2. Set clear work boundaries

Always set clear boundaries when it comes to work. Toxic productivity always causes you to work hard for hours without numbers. To break that cycle, you must learn to set boundaries and reclaim your free time. Always have specific working hours, and this is even more important when you are working remotely.

After your working hours, make it a point to leave all the unnecessary pending work there for the coming day, and get back home to unwind. Leave your work energy in the workplace, and when you enter home, go in with a fresh mind with the right intention to spend quality time with your loved ones.

Also read: 9 ways to deal with a toxic boss during the pandemic, according to a psychologist

3. Expectations

Having very high expectations from oneself and others is also not a good idea. Having realistic goals according to the time, place, or circumstances of your staff or yourself is very important. Just like you, your staff will also be flawed and mistakes from their end are inevitable. Do not dwell on the faults, instead look for solutions and execute them. Motivate your staff to do better, and let go of trivial mistakes. Have strong boundaries for your working hours and physical capacity.

4. Positive thinking styles

Many people want to be the best and if they are unable to achieve that, they feel they have not done enough. Until they have not worked very hard or they have not reached the benchmark, they feel anxious. Hence, they work more. That is called imposter syndrome. This is called black and white thinking style as well. People need to break this style by understanding that the entire world works on the shades of grey, it is okay to be not perfect, reckons the expert

5. Therapy

Psychotherapy also sometimes helps them work on balancing life and breaking the pattern of imposter syndrome and addiction to work. Therapy techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) help get to the root cause of such behaviour through “talk therapy”. A professional will help restructure your thinking patterns and the behaviours that follow to help you strike a work-life balance.

6. Emotional regulation

Working on underlying issues due to which one works too much is also crucial. Sometimes to get some respite from the issues of mental health or relationships, people indulge in workaholism which leads to toxic productivity. Underlying bad emotions like fear of failure, imposter syndrome, low self-esteem, feelings of guilt about not being able to accomplish enough, job insecurity, comparison, or personal life stress can add up within you, triggering the behaviour or toxic productivity.

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