How haste syndrome harms work and gets sick; See exits

In the accelerated world of today, the pressure To do more, reach more and be more in less time It has become part of modern life – and this is running out employees. The authors of a study on professional service companies have found that most respondents described their work as “highly demanding, exhaustive and chaotic”, and also considered it normal to work “long hours” to succeed professional success.

Conclusions echo the results of another recent global research with 56,000 employees, where 45% said their workload had increased significantly in the last 12 months. Half felt that there were too much and very fast changes in his workplace.

That urgency relentless can result in a phenomenon known as “Hurry Syndrome”a term first introduced in 1974 by cardiologists Meyer Friedman and RH Rosenman to describe the harmful effects of (ie high performance) behavior on cardiovascular health.

Hurry syndrome is not a diagnostable condition, but it encapsulates a set of behaviors and emotions – impatience, chronic hurry and a constant feeling of shortage of time -that can devastate a person’s physical and mental well-being.

Although the responsibility to address many of the roots of rush syndrome should fall on employers-excessive work culture, incentives for overwork, and constant organizational changes, for example-there are measures you can take to mitigate it even under non-ideal circumstances.

Why haste has been dangerous

A anxiety and chronic stress that come from a frantic and always active lifestyle, along with the belief that you are chronically without timecan result in high blood pressure, headaches and insomnia. High blood pressure and symptoms of anxiety and depression (commonly referred to as psychological suffering) are known risk factors for cardiovascular disease and even death.

Study points out that psychological suffering alone increases the risk of mortality for any cause – and the higher the psychological suffering, the higher the risk of death, even after adjustments to factors such as age, body mass index, smoking, physical activity and alcohol consumption.

Hurry syndrome can also leave you physically and mentally exhausted While running from task to task and does not allow time for basic care, such as healthy and regular meals, adequate sleep and pauses. Increasingly fatigued, your immune system can be suppressed, leading to greater susceptibility to infectious diseases.

At work, hurry syndrome can lead to a bad decision makingas well as bad results when you do not give yourself time to think about things or when hurry results in errors.

Deeply immersed in haste, you experience a diminished ability to absorb, process and use new information, and your ability to innovate can suffersince creativity cannot be hurriedly hurried.

Relationships may suffer because you are easily annoyed when others do not follow your pace or because you are openly skeptical about their ability to do things efficiently.

When relationships fail, the dynamics and production of the team suffer, since the Collaboration is compromised. When chronic work stress leads to exhaustion, negativity and poor performance, the end result of in a hurry can be total exhaustion.

Identifying Hurry Syndrome

One of the things that makes haste difficult to detect is its ability to disguise it as efficiency, productivity, realization or value creation for the organization. Since each of these qualities is valued and a high performance signal, you may not even realize that something is wrong until your constant haste covers a price.

See if any of these signs and symptoms of hurry syndrome is present in your own work experience:

• Everything seems urgent. You often feel restless, anxious or worried because everything seems to be answered at once and over as soon as possible.

• You are always in a hurry. You walk, speak, perform tasks and even drive at a quick pace. You tend to interrupt others or have them and constantly do several things at the same time in an attempt to end more things faster.

• You are worried about the passage of time. It seems that time is always escaping you, you feel compelled to “win the clock” and are always looking for shortcuts and ways to save time.

• You always feel late. Despite your efforts, you often worry about staying behind – even when deadlines are not imminent or others consider it highly productive and ahead of the schedule.

• You have little patience and get angry easily. Even smaller delays can trigger stress and frustration, and you may lose calm when something (or someone) interposes between you and the conclusion of a task.

• You penalize your health in favor of efficiency and productivity. Doing things is always in your mind and has precedence over everything else. You sacrifice sleep, meals, exercises, time with family and friends or hobbies to perform tasks – and the faster, the better.

• You feel uncomfortable with moments of inactivity and rarely take time to rest. You consider slowing down or pause a waste of time. Being unoccupied can make you anxious, irritable, impatient or restless.

• You enjoy completing tasks. Pleasant experiences trigger the release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter known as the pleasure hormone. It is dopamine that provides a reward in the form of powerful feelings of pleasure and satisfaction – and motivates us to repeat a pleasant action to experience the reward again. For those who love productivity and efficiency, there may be no more reward than to complete tasks.

In most professional environments today, responsibility falls on the individual to trace and preserve their own limits. This is already difficult in work cultures that value fast results and overwork, but as Drs. Meyer and Rosenman point out, certain personality traits can increase susceptibility to haste.

In addition to the pattern of behavior of type A, perfectionists, pleasant, and those that equip self -esteem productivity may be at higher risk.

Perfectionists often spend excessive task time in an attempt to achieve an unrealistic ideal, which steals time from other necessary tasks and literally leaves them to recover time.

Pleasures are in danger of saying yes to all requests, leaving them overloaded, hasty and in danger of being left behind. And many individuals oriented towards performing their self -esteem how quickly they can produce.

How to overcome haste

Although the costs of hurry syndrome may be severe, medicines are promptly available. Try these tips and tactics to start slow and recover your health – Without compromising performance:

Force yourself to stop running. Block time off on your calendar to deal with unexpected tasks; Set aside time for concentrated work and without distractions, without a specific goal; And schedule time to reflect and reclassify your task list so that you do not address everything with the same sense of urgency.

Think before you say yes. Not only do you need to examine your calendar to see if you can really accept an order, but you also need to reflect to see if it should. Are you the only person who can fulfill him? Will this much require your time, energy or resources? Does this support your own goals? Since hurry syndrome becomes a lifestyle, it will be difficult not to say yes, so you may need the help of a colleague you trust or use the next tactic.

Write the consequences of saying yes. Stop to write what will happen if you say yes to an order forces you to slow down and prevent you from saying yes automatically. I prefer to do this exercise by hand for the deepest reflection. Is the amount of stress associated with this task tolerable? Will the order take a long time of out -of -work activities or simply to recharge the energies? See the consequences literally written before you slow down and can be a great alarm clock.

Write the benefits of slowing down. For extra responsibility and inspiration, try the opposite side: Make a list of all the positive aspects you can enjoy if you slow down a little. For many, it is extra sleep, more time for relationships and a sense of relaxation and peace.

Use a tool to help you prioritize. Hurry syndrome can mask what is really high priority, leading you to believe that everything is, therefore, bring a little objectivity to your task list. Many of my coaching clients like the method that divides the tasks between: doing, delegating, and deleting – called 4DS in English. Bonus Tip: Do not add another task to your list before scratching one.

Practice self -pity. When a person is addicted to the “scratch tasks” dopamine from a list, self -pity that allows to direct energy in a healthier and more productive way. An example is a client who is free from guilt with the help of an inventory of all the things he could do. She also counterbalances self -criticism with the “friend’s test”: is those hard words she would say to a friend? If not, she let it go and move on.

Practice the full attention. Full attention is nothing more than slowing down to give its full attention, without judgments, at the present moment – in many ways, the Antithesis of Hurry Syndrome. Even practicing full attention for a few minutes at a time – such as deep breathing, simple body scanning, bringing your full attention to a routine physical task, such as preparing a cup of tea, or spending a few moments listening to relaxing music – it can quickly reduce stress and give your brain overloaded a necessary pause. Practiced over time, full attention can decrease its fixation to run to do things and is a key ingredient in a healthy, focused and balanced life.

Seek support. If the causes of your hurry syndrome are deep or if you simply find it very difficult to manage your time urgency alone, seeking help from a therapist, executive coach or support group can be an essential part of a long -term cure. Colleagues can also help you maintain daily habits that bring the necessary dose of slowness to your life.

As the demands of work and personal life are confused in an era of hyperconnectivity and culture of excessive work, hastest syndrome is more insidious than ever, silently sabotaging productivity, relationships and health.

Remember, it’s not about how fast you are going; This is how well you use the time you have.

Kandi ViennaEdd, is a senior researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book “Immunity to Exhaustion: How Emotional Intelligence can help you build resilience and cure your relationship with work.”

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