Balancing Work, Family, And Health: Tips For Women
- Admin
- 26 March, 2024
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Work, family, and health are three important aspects of living a healthy and fulfilling life. Ideally, one shouldn’t compromise on any of these matters to ensure holistic well-being.
This is where the importance of striking a work-life balance lies. Having a work-life balance helps you navigate your family, work, and health in the best way possible. In a country like India where women shoulder several responsibilities regarding their families while working, maintaining a healthy work-life balance is extremely important.
Hard-working women in the country are often expected to focus on their families and their work lives simultaneously. Unfortunately, many of them do not have the luxury of ignoring one for the other. Under such circumstances, the best way to lead a fulfilling life is to maintain an ideal work-life balance. This not only helps a woman thrive in her professional career but also keeps her mentally and physically healthy.
Before sharing a few important tips for women willing to balance work, family, and health, let us quickly understand what work-life balance is.
As the name suggests, work-life balance refers to the balance between an individual’s personal and professional lives. While the professional life involves everything related to their work (whether they work as a salaried employee, freelancer, or an entrepreneur), the personal life deals with matters related to family and health.
It is common for people to give a little more importance to their personal or professional lives. Paying a lot of attention to your personal life may hamper your professional progress. Having said that, ignoring your personal life while pursuing your career is equally unhealthy. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance allows you to lead an ideal life that keeps you healthy and professionally fulfilled.
Here are the most important characteristics of a healthy work-life balance that determine your quality of life:
A healthy work-life balance involves setting clear boundaries between your personal and professional lives. The blurrier this boundary gets, the more damage you cause to your well-being. Define your work hours (if possible) and dedicate enough time to your health and family every day.
We all have twenty-hour hours in a day and maintaining a healthy work-life balance demands us to make the most of them. It is never advisable to dedicate a major chunk of your time to your work in a way that you have no time left for your family. The same is true for not giving your professional life the focus it deserves.
You are likely to encounter stress while maintaining your work-life balance. The key to living a healthy life is to manage stress effectively. While some stress can be productive, excessive stress can lead to crippling anxiety. If you think your stress is going out of hand, you should seek immediate medical help.
Along with setting well-defined boundaries, it is equally important to be flexible in your approach to living a well-balanced life. If you find yourself going a bit overboard with work, take some time off and increase the focus on your well-being for some time. Unnecessary rigidity is never a healthy option.
Women are natural multi-taskers. They have the innate ability to glide between different tasks while assuming multiple responsibilities. Having said that, it is important to maintain a healthy work-life balance to be able to focus on work, family, and health effectively.
Here are a few important tips that should help a woman navigate her work, family, and health in the best possible way:
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It is a common assumption that meticulous planning ruins a healthy life. While bursts of spontaneity are always needed, planning in advance helps us maintain a healthy work-life balance. If a married woman wishes to look after her family while having a corporate job, it is advisable to plan ahead and divide her time between her family and the office in a way that nothing is hampered.
Time plays arguably the most important role in maintaining a work-life balance. It is advisable for women to create a daily schedule of the tasks to be completed. From dedicating a fixed number of hours to exercising to limiting overtime at work, handling time well is the key to a healthy work-life balance.
In many ways, your health should be prioritized over your work and family. You will be able to focus on both these parties only if you are healthy. Go for regular health checkups to keep unnecessary complications at bay. If you have a family doctor who is ready to offer doctor-on-call services, it will help you save some time. If not, you can simply Google “General Physicians near me” and look for healthcare professionals offering these services. At the end of the day, a healthy body will help you maintain a work-life balance.
Along with your physical health, your mental health needs your attention. You will encounter various stressful situations while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Instead of giving into such stress that leads to mental health complications, it is better to acknowledge the problem and try to solve it.
Meditation and mindfulness practices help you find the calm in a chaotic world. Take a few minutes out and reflect on your life. Such breaks are important to plan further ahead and understand whatever goes on around you at any time. A few deep breaths can help you put things into perspective.
If you notice your stress going out of control, seek a mental health professional’s help. Just like physical health checks, do not wait for things to get worse.
Your work should never dictate the time you spend with your family and yourself. It is important to set clear boundaries as to when your work should end. Unless a situation is unavoidable, do not stretch your work hours at the expense of your family and loved ones.
This is one of the many reasons why the mental health of several employees took a toll during the two COVID waves. As people were working from home for the first time, they did not know when to end their work. When your work hours start burning into your personal life, you should pause a little and reevaluate your work hours.
Distractions will hamper your personal and professional lives. While at work, stay away from your phone and block distracting sites that may eat into your work hours. You may want to increase the number of work breaks but do not allow distractions to carry you away. Limit the time you spend on social media to increase your work output.
Similarly, do not let work-related matters distract you when you are spending time with your loved ones. The same is true for all the time you spend working on yourself. Your work should never be a distraction during your reading sessions, walks, the time you spend meditating, and exercise routine.
Especially if you live away from home, it is important to bond with your coworkers beyond your work hours. Living alone can have an adverse impact on your work-life balance as you do not have much company apart from the people you work with. Spending time with your colleagues will give you a sense of belonging and help you find a home away from home.
Women often get so engrossed in their work routine that they push through even during illnesses. This is never a healthy way to maintain a work-life balance. Even if you have a trivial flu or fever, take a day off to recover and return to work only when you are 100% healthy. This will not only take a toll on your well-being but also hamper your work as you will not be at your productive best.
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While a work-life balance is essential, it is not healthy for a professional to yearn for the same. If your work makes it difficult for you to head home, you are probably in the wrong profession. It is never too late to reconsider things. Seek help from a career counselor and make necessary shifts in your professional life to lead a more fulfilling life.
If you wish to maintain a work-life balance but cannot get there due to health complications, DocVille gives you access to qualified doctors at home. Our team of home visit doctors and General Physicians offering doctor-on-call services ensure that you lead a healthy life, giving your work, family, and health the attention they deserve. With DocVille, you can get in touch with healthcare professionals remotely, receiving comprehensive medical care from the comfort of your home.
