Work-life Balance: What It Is And How To Balance It, Enhancing Our Well-being
The work-life balance proposes us to try to reconcile both areas of our lives, work and personal, to achieve an adequate psychological and emotional balance.
Currently, in the demanding work world in which we live, it’s easy to lose balance and spend more time working, relegating the most personal sphere to the background. This lack of balance not only has an impact on the areas that we fail to attend to, such as family, partner or friends, but it ends up affecting one’s own functionality at work and also has an impact on the physical and psychological health of each subject.
In this article we will talk about work-life balance we will see what variables impact the possibility of balance, what psychological consequences the lack of balance between work and personal life has, and how to act to achieve professional and family conciliation.
The work-life balance, or in Spanish balance between work and life, consists of the degree of conciliation between work life and personal and family life. We know that both factors, both work and family, are important in our lives and, therefore, it is necessary to dedicate the relevant time to each one, without neglecting any.
In today’s society, where work demands and job demands are so high, it is easy for us to focus excessively on this area and stop dedicating time to others.
Each area gives us different things. For example, work allows us to develop our professional career and earn money; instead, The family member is what allows us to develop as people, relating to our most emotional part. For this reason, it is essential to find the balance between both to feel fully fulfilled.
On the other hand, it is necessary to point out that currently we must ensure that in both sexes there is the possibility of reconciling all areas. That is to say, that both women and men can develop professionally and personally and that they dedicate themselves to both contexts in a balanced and similar way. For this reason, to guarantee that conciliation is carried out and complied with by the different companies, regulations have been established that contain the different rights that workers have.
Variables that do not allow reconciliation
There are different more or less controllable factors that can affect work-life balance and make it difficult to achieve balance between work and family life.
In reference to the workplace, working long hours or an increase in job responsibility may require greater dedication of time.
In addition, Working from home, which we currently know as teleworking, also makes it difficult to separate time that we dedicate to the work of personal and family time. It is easy for us to not respect the schedule and end up working more hours, thus producing an imbalance.
The family or personal sphere can also show variations that affect balance, such as the birth of a child, a family member being sick, or ourselves becoming sick. For this reason, It is necessary that the rights of each worker be established so that they can deal with work and family responsibilities.
Effects caused by lack of conciliation
When we are not able or not allowed to reconcile work and family, both areas end up being affected, even having an impact on the mental and physical health of the subject. When we spend excessive time at work, we unbalance the balance, it is easy for us to sooner or later show symptoms linked to this growing demand. The sole dedication to work means that we do not have time for other areas of our life, and with a very high probability I ended up burning out at work an experience that is also known as burnout.
The increase in demand in one of the areas and also wanting to attend to and fulfill the demands of the others causes our rest to be affected and we feel more tired, potentially increasing stress and thereby altering our physical health, increasing the risk of develop some type of pathology, such as heart disease and our mental health, the more easily we will show symptoms typical of anxiety and depressive disorders.
In the same way, The increase in demand in the workplace also has an impact on the social sphere. We do not dedicate time to our family, our partner may feel hurt, and our friends may distance themselves from us, which results, among other things, in a lack of social support and the appearance of unwanted loneliness.
If we do not balance and only dedicate time to one of the areas of our life, we end up harming not only those that we leave unattended, but also the one we attend to, since our motivation and functionality are affected.
Work and family conciliation rights
As we have already seen, there are regulations that try to reconcile the work environment with personal and family life. Thus, We have the right to ask for permission with the intention of being able to dedicate more time to our personal life. We can classify the permits into two categories. Paid leave, in this case the time granted to them, is not subtracted from vacation or land and they will not have to recover it either. We can grant this leave for maternity and paternity, both 16 weeks, for breastfeeding, up to 9 months of the baby and for vacations.
The other type of leave is unpaid, in this case the worker will not continue to receive his salary. We distinguish between leave of absence when work is stopped for a period of time and reduction of working hours, in this case the salary will be reduced proportionally to the decrease in hours worked.
How to balance work with personal life
Given the alterations or problems that not having a good work-family balance may entail, it will be necessary for us to try to achieve conciliation as much as possible. If you are not able to manage the situation and you feel overwhelmed, seeking professional help is the best option to achieve conciliation.
1. Inform yourself of your rights
As we have stated in the previous section, workers have rights that they can avail of when appropriate. Don’t wait for anyone to look out for you, Find out what permits or aid you can request in order to balance all areas and be able to dedicate the relevant time to each one.
2. Create a clear schedule
It is important to manage our time well, organize ourselves and be able to enjoy each area. Above all, it is essential to manage ourselves well when we work from home or are our own bosses, when we do not have a specific schedule established, since in this situation it is easier for us to end up dedicating more hours and, therefore, losing balance. Set a schedule and pay attention to sticking to it with maximum precision try to organize yourself to be as productive as possible during working hours so you can achieve the set goals and enjoy your rest time.
3. Learn to say no
It is key to work on assertiveness to be able to defend your rights adequately. Sometimes for fear of the consequences we may receive, for lack of information, for not knowing how to say that we do not accept jobs, or for seeing our labor rights compromised. For this reason, it is key to inform yourself about the regulations and defend the rights that belong to us.
Assess what activities or tasks you can do and present your proposal to your boss so you can negotiate and reach an agreement that benefits both of you.
Related article: “6 guidelines to learn to say ‘no'”
4. At the end of your work day, disconnect completely
It is essential to enjoy free time, given that, as we have said, dedicating ourselves too much to one area ends up burning and affecting all areas of the subject’s life. Try to separate well your work time, the time you dedicate to your children, the time you spend with your partner and the time you share with your friends, they are all important and we cannot place one above the other, especially work.
When you finish your work schedule, disconnect completely, do not respond to more calls or work emails, if you are working, leave the place you have established to work and start doing another different task that helps you distract and focus your attention on other topics. Do activities with your children, make plans with your friends and go out to dinner with your partner. These activities are what really allow you to be well and be more functional and appear more motivated in your work.
5. Take care of your health
A lack of balance between the different areas can lead to both physical and psychological health problems. It is crucial that we follow an adequate and healthy routine so that our condition is not affected and we appear strong in the face of challenges that may arise. It is essential that we rest the necessary hours, at least 7 hours, practicing sports can help us to improve both our physical and mental health, since it helps to disconnect, nutrition is also essential to obtain essential nutrients for our body to function correctly.
