You’re important too!

It’s easy when we are working to forget to take care of ourselves. As time goes by, we wear down. Pretty soon, we haven’t taken a lunch in months; we forgot our child’s baseball game and our lives are a blur. It is important to find ways to rationally detach from our workday and find a way to relax and enjoy life. This is especially important when you are working in a stressful job.

Rational detachment is the ability to let go and disconnect from a stressful situation or from our work. Some individuals may spend their time doing yoga or hanging out with friends. Other’s may read or enjoy leisure boat rides. What you do isn’t as important as leaving work early sometimes and doing something you enjoy everyday.

Our days are filled with busy appointments, appliances to fix, or equipment to order and patients to see. However, it is important that all of that does not take over your lives.  “A 2010 LexisNexis survey of 1,700 white collar workers in the U.S., China, South Africa, the U.K. and Australia revealed that on average employees spend more than half their workdays receiving and managing information rather than using it to do their jobs,” Ferris Jaber. We spend our days solving problems and managing people and yet when we are tired and need a break, most of us continue to push through. However, pushing through actually creates a problem later on as we are not as focused and may have to redo something because we did it incorrectly.

When your body and brain need a time out, take it, even if it is five minutes of a breathing exercise or enjoying a quick lunch with a friend.