Why you should stop working long hours

If you think working for long hours is making you more focused and determined, you’re wrong. In the quest to get the boss’ praise, most people end up working more than 40 hours a week that even gets stretched to 50 hours, which is in fact, quite harmful to one’s health. Working for long hours will slowly make you less productive and affect your mental strength for the long term. To help you understand the effects better, here are some definite reasons why you should immediately stop working for long hours.

A research paper stated that participants who worked for 40 hours and added another 20 hours to their schedule recorded an increase in productivity for the first few weeks. But, after that, it started to get negative and the productivity levels dipped to a very low level. This proved that people will face low productivity levels if they continue to work for longer hours than required.

People’s health starts to deteriorate once the fatigue from all that overworking sets in. You might feel extra sleepy, tired, stressed, experience headaches, and even feel irritation at the smallest of matters. If this isn’t dealt with, work productivity will take a turn for the worse. And your life will also suffer.

Too much work makes you neglect your social life a lot. This causes rifts within relationships and your family suffers due to your inability to give them time. Even though attaining a good work-life balance is hard, it shouldn’t definitely be unattainable. Alluding time to your family is equally necessary, compared to your work.

When you become extremely stressed and tired, you tend to do things incorrectly. But what’s more dangerous is that your safety is at risk. You are more prone to accidents and injuries since you’re not at the top of your mental capacity. You shouldn’t ignore this possibility. Better safe than sorry.

Reports suggest that the chances of heart attack increase by a whopping 67% for those who tend to work more than 40-45 hours. The extra pressure takes a toll on the heart as well as the brain. Other factors like blood pressure, migraines, diabetes, etc. certainly don't help your heart and mind.

The extended time you spend working can affect your other functionalities during the day such as walking, exercising, cooking, and sleeping which are major risk factors for obesity. While sitting on the sofa for hours, you also tend to munch on junk food to find comfort and that is also a big contributing factor for extreme weight gain.