6 Scientifically Proven Ways to Improve Work-Life Balance & Reduce Stress

This is an iHart Podcast Guaranteed Human When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on? Biggie You put on biggie when you feel uncomfortable? I want to get confident This is DJ Hester Prince Music Is Therapy A new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist 12 months, 12 areas of your life Money, love, career, confidence This isn't just a podcast, it's unconventional therapy for your entire year Listen to DJ Hester Prince Music Is Therapy On the iHart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts What if mine control is real? If you get control of the Aver if anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious mind games A new podcast exploring NLP, aka neuro-linguistic programming Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to mind games on the iHart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Lori Siegel, a long-time tech journalist And consider my new podcast mostly human, your bridge to the future Anyone can now be an entrepreneur, anyone can build a app, and it's very empowering Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future And we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion They're actually dating the companies that create this We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history And let's be honest, that can be messy There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment Mostly human will show you how My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit The reason I say agencies is because if we can give power back to people Then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health Listen to mostly human on the iHart Radio App, Apple Podcasts Or wherever you listen to your favorite shows Focus on the relationships at work as much as the work One of the reasons why work is stressful is because we don't trust people and they don't trust us It's stressful because we haven't built community It's harder because we don't have relationships and people don't want to help and support us And so don't be negligent or neglectful of people at work Because you think, "Hey, it pays the bills, I took care of it, I'm out" Because that actually makes it harder Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose The number one health podcast in the world Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow If you're here, you're here because you're dedicated to your health You're dedicated to your mindset, you're dedicated to your well-being And you're dedicated to being 1% better every single day That's what we're aiming for, that's all we're working towards Because we know that that stacks up, it adds up And I'm so excited to be talking to you today I can't believe it, my new book, "Eight Rules of Love" is out in literally like 11 days now And I cannot wait to share with you, I am so so excited for you to read this book For you to listen to this book, I read the audiobook If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to 8 Rules of Love.com Pre-order the book today and when you pre-order it and you submit on the website You'll actually get my free workshop called "Eight Pleasays of Love" For free, you'll get that as soon as you pre-order the book So make sure you pre-order either the audiobook or the hardcover of 8 Rules of Love.com I can't wait for you to read and hear it Now today's episode is all about your well-being and the workplace I know we usually start January with some goals, with some intentions, maybe with some journaling and habits And usually by this time we're starting to realize how difficult it is And often our work can be a great source of stress, pain and even burnout And I really wanted today to look at this relationship between work and well-being Studies show that 57% of people who are burnt out report being less productive in the last 12 months 47% of people who are burnt out report producing lower quality work And none of that feels good, right? None of that feels good. We don't enjoy being burnt out. We don't enjoy being exhausted This is important to look at because there's a year by year increase in how many of us feel burnt out In 2020 it was about 29.6% and in 2021 it was about 34.7% And we know that number is rising year on year so if you're experiencing burnout If you're experiencing stress from work, whether you work at a company or for yourself or kind of in between Or maybe you've started a side hustle If you experience any stress, any pain, any pressure This episode is for you. I want you to send this to that friend that you've been talking about, burn out to all week I know that these are conversations that you're having and I hope that my conversations with you on the podcast help you navigate these Some of the insights I'm going to give today are truly game changes Like they're really going to flip the switch for you and so I want you to listen all the way through to the end So let's dive straight in. Workplace stress is estimated to be the fifth biggest cause of death in the United States Around 40% of workers identify their jobs as very or extremely stressful and a troubling quarter of Americans identify their jobs as the number one source of stress in their lives Now the truth is we're spending 8, 9, 10, maybe even 12 hours at work And so for it to be a cause of stress in our lives or a source of stress in our lives is highly difficult and uncomfortable because we've got to go there for that long We're spending more than half of our waking hours in the workplace So I want to address work life balance in a new interesting way today And often we think of it as work causes me stress, my home life has to be easier But then we come home and we realize there's stress at home Maybe we're arguing with our partner, maybe we're irritable, maybe the dishes are not cleaned, maybe there's stuff breaking down Maybe there's so many other health challenges that are coming about so what ends up happening is that we have stress at work and stress at home And neither tend to slow down or become easier The first thing I want to raise with you is that work becomes harder and more stressful when we're not growing or learning at work or about work So what's really interesting is that there's this idea called euda-monic happiness And the word euda-monic comes from the word euda-monia in Greek which means good spirit and commonly translated as happiness It's a beautiful word, I really love how poetic it is as well But the idea of euda-monic happiness is that we derive happiness from optimal functioning and reaching our potential These can be really great sources of happiness It's almost like the joy that you feel or the fulfillment that you feel when you finish something, when you get over the finish line, when you complete something And we've forgotten that, we've forgotten that We're trying to think of work as something like I need to get it done, need to get it out the way over avoiding work because there's a new challenge, there's a new stress But actually so much of our well-being comes from accomplishing things at work, feeling validated at work, feeling heard at work, feeling like we have an impact at work These are all important parts of our well-being And I think today one of the biggest reasons we're disengaged from work is we see work as a source of stress And we hope that home life is better, but stress will not disappear by trying to run away from work or trying to shut it off It actually comes from connecting meaningfully at work So the goal is how can we look at the work you've got going on right now and ask yourself, not how do I just deal with the stress But what skills don't I have that would make work easier? I really really learn this the hard way I realize that, you know, I've never built big teams, I've worked with small teams but as my company continues to grow, whether it's the podcast, whether it's my wife and I's tea company, joyo Whether it's writing more books that I really want to do, whether it's our genius community and our certification school We have so many things going on and I realize that one of my biggest weaknesses that was causing stress See your strengths don't cause stress, your weaknesses cause stress One of my weaknesses was I didn't know how to build teams, I didn't know how to lead teams And you can't just assume that because you have some ideas and insights and you're focused on something that you've got you just know how to do everything. And so I found that the last two years, I invested heavily in having a leadership coach, in reading leadership books, in sitting with really successful leaders, and interviewing them and asking them questions. What that did is it made my weakness a strength. Now so much of my stress is decreased because I built a skill. Remember this, skills decrease stress. Weakness is increased stress. Right? Skills decrease stress. When you're skilled, your stress gets lowered because you know you can handle it. Right? You believe you can handle it. You trust that you can handle a navigate whatever's being thrown at you. And so you demonic happiness is something that I really want you to think about. It's that are you realizing your potential at work? Are you creating a growth plan at work? Have you identified the added skills that you need to develop and learn that are going to make you feel more fulfilled at work? For example, let's say you struggle with giving a presentation and you're always scared about that. Naturally, you're going to become more shy at work. You're going to become more closed off. But now, guess what? You're going to start to notice that other people are giving preferential treatment because they do like presentations. You're starting to feel like you're falling behind. All of a sudden, work is a source of stress. All you're someone who's looking at work and just thinking, "Wow, like too much is demanded of me. Too much is expected of me." But if you just look at that for a second and think, "Well, wait a minute, maybe there's a skill that if I learned, like time boxing, like a specific time management tool, or maybe there's a particular software, that's going to make me more effective and more productive at work." And in turn, that productivity and effectiveness is going to lead to satisfaction and fulfillment. So don't underestimate how much work just as it's a cause of stress. Can actually be a source of strength and fulfillment because you feel validated in your efforts and what you achieve. The idea of achievement and accomplishment is not about the ego of getting there or showing off. It's biological. The chemicals released during achievement and fulfillment or completion of a task help us feel happier. And this second point reaffirms the first. People who feel they have a good work-life balance work 21% harder than those who don't. And that's mind-blowing, right? You think that if you had a work-life balance, then that means everything's equal. Actually, those who feel like they have a healthy balance, they actually work harder. They apply themselves more because studies show that we can handle more stress when it feels meaningful, when it feels productive, when it feels like we're achieving something, we can push ourselves. So I want to ask you, what's a goal? The first question was, what's a skill that you need to learn? The second is, what's a challenge you're going to set yourself? What's a goal at work that you want to reach? What's a goal at work that's important to you? What's something about work that's meaningful to you to get behind? I think often we look at our work as our tasks. And if we only look at it as tasks, we limit it to that very small step, rather than looking at the bigger picture of how our work impacts our lives and other people's lives. If we're going to be there for that long, let's make it fulfilling and meaningful. Let's not succumb to the feeling that for 10 hours a day, I have to be miserable, stressed, and want to get out of there because that mindset sets us up for more pain and stress. I'm going to wait one, right now, about one, 30. I'm 183. We should race. No, I don't want to leave here with my original hips. On the podcast to match up with the Leah, I pair prominent female athletes with unexpected guests. On a recent episode, I sat down with undisputed boxing champ, Clarissa Shields, and comedian Wanda Sykes to talk about Wanda's new movie, Undercard, the Art of Trash Shock and what it really means to be Ladylike. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the match up with the Leah and listen now. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports Network. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctor this particular test twice in selling, correct? I doctor the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Some lights the greatest disinfectant. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Break a Westby ant like a mountain. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at America, Papacanias Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until Justice has served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trap podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, gorgeous. It's Lala Kent, host of "Untraditionally Lala." My days of filling up cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, "Untraditionally Lala," I'm still that Lala. You either love or love to hate. I've been full on oversharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Schwartz when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife? I was flipped a pizza in your lap. Oh my god, I literally forgot about that until just now, sorry, I don't want to blame all of that. I got to blame that one on the alcohol. This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life. Because I'm a mistake so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's "Untraditionally Lala." Listen to "Untraditionally Lala" on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Press. Now, one of the words that became very popular during the pandemic and post-pandemic for workplace was flexibility. And 59% of people in a study have reported that flexibility is more important to them than salary or other benefits. And 77% said they would prefer to work for a company that gives them the flexibility to work from anywhere rather than fancy corporate headquarters. But here's the thing, often we use words, and those words don't really communicate what we're truly looking for. And they found this through further studies where 61% of employees reported that they would prefer if management allowed team members to come into the office when they need to and work from home when they need to. And so, they realized that it's not just flexibility, the real word is autonomy. And so I want you to think about these two words. Flexibility means, yes, sometimes we can work from home and sometimes we can work from the office, or a coffee shop or whatever it may be. Autonomy is, I want to make that choice. Right, I want to make that choice. I want to be involved in that choice. Now, I think that a healthy workplace has a balance of both of these. I think there's flexibility, but there's also some autonomy. And you'll find people that are trusted, more senior in organizations as they grow. All people who are very productive and effective receive more autonomy. Maybe this is a really healthy conversation to have with your boss, to have with your manager, and say, hey, I'm really looking for a sense of knowing where I can be most productive and effective. And why don't we try it for a month? I think this month trial idea is really important, because you're not saying, okay, well, this is our want to work from now. And you're saying, well, let me prove it. Let me show that I am more productive and effective from these places. I think I am. I think often employers get scared that when people ask for flexibility and autonomy, it means that they're going to work less hard. And there's truth and reality in that. But if you're someone who's highly self-aware, and you can say, oh no, well, actually, I know that when I want to be creative, I'm more creative in a coffee shop. I know that when I'm trying to be effective with the teams, I want to be in person. I don't want to be on Zoom. And then I know there's days when I'm stressed out about my kids and I need to be around them and I'd rather work from home. Right? That's a really healthy way to look at it. Stop trying to make these blanket statements. We're like, I just want to work from home. I just want to work from the office. So I want to work from wherever. It's healthy when you think, wait, what's going to make me better at work and what's going to make me better at home. And so I think what we're really looking for is autonomy, even more than flexibility. Autonomy is the idea that we have choice in how we spend our time flexibility is knowing that there is a bit of both. And so I would highly recommend that you have and openly communicate that. But if you are going to communicate that with someone, explain where you're going to spend what time. A lot of people will be like, yeah, I want to choose where I work from. But it's coming from a place of lethargy and trying to do the least as opposed to do more and give more back. Now I want to share with you point number four is this story that has always stayed with me. It's a story that's been told for many, many years. I think I read about it first in the seven habits of highly effective people, which is one of my favorite books. And in this book, there's a story of a person who takes a job as a woodcutter. and he gets employed and he starts to cut the person who. employees him, set some on to his way, trains him how to use the saw, and he goes out. And the first day he cuts 20 trees. And he thinks, oh, this is amazing. This is great. Now, the next couple of days he hits the same. But a few days later, he only came back with 15 trees. And he worked the same hours. He put in the same effort. A few days later, he only cut 10 trees, worked the same hours, put in the same effort. A few days later, he only cut five trees, worked the same hours, put in the same effort, even a little few more hours, even a bit more effort. But his effectiveness and impact was going down. It was really interesting. The person that hired him, said to him, you know, what's happening? What's up? Like, what's going on? You went from 20 to five. And the woodcutter said, I have no idea what's going on. And this is the sign of good leadership and management, the leader of the company, the manager said, you know what it is? It's that you never sharpened your saw. You're cutting with the blunt saw. And day one, I gave you a sharp saw. So you could cut trees with that energy and strength. But every day as you cut more trees, the blade became more blunt. And the more blunt it became, the less impactful it was. So remember to sharpen the saw. So I ask you, well, what are you doing to sharpen your saw? This is why we do need a break for those of us that are on the other end of the spectrum, where we work too hard, we may love what we work, we take on all the stress for work. That's not healthy either because now our creativity plummets, now our productivity plummets, right? It's both extremes. If we're just being lazy and lethargic, we don't achieve anything. So we miss out on the happiness of accomplishment. And if we're being overproductive and over efficient, we lose creativity. We lose that spark. We lose that intensity and buzz. And so I want to encourage you to take time out, to take that break and to do things that are refreshing, things that are refreshing include going to sleep early, things that are refreshing include spending time with good friends and having deep vulnerable, open, funny, hilarious conversations, things that are good for you in that scenario include having sensory deprivation. I really believe one of the things that I like to do here is something called a sensory deprivation tank, which is basically like this capsule which you sit inside, you're floating in water, which has magnesium in it. And it's really therapeutic, really relaxing. The goal of it is to be completely reducing stimulation and sensory overload. Now you can do that yourself. It may be a bath, it may be sitting in a quiet room in your home. It's just allowing your senses to not constantly be triggered by adverts, by messages, by notifications, right? If you're feeling that overwhelmed, it's coming because we're not having this sensory deprivation. When I go to India, I always take people to risk your case, which is at the foothills of the Himalayas. And we often go to meditate in the caves there. And the reason why, I mean, it sounds cool, right? But the caves are really powerful because it's sensory deprivation. When you walk into a cave and you just walk in maybe even 10, 20, 30 meters deep, you can't see anything, right? It's dark. It's still, it's silent. Our senses need that more than ever today because from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you're being bombarded with news, noise, notifications and negativity. So we need time in our day, even if you don't meditate or you don't know how to to spend time where your senses are not constantly being triggered and demanded. Okay. Point number five is the great outdoors. We've heard this time and time again that it's important to spend time outdoors, especially in green spaces. And a research study found that people who take short breaks in nature, improve their performance by 20% compared with those who went on a walk in a busy urban area. Now, I know that's tough in certain cities, but even if you can get to a small park or a larger park, if possible, or a hike, or whatever surrounds yourself with trees and nature. And the reason for this links to the last point I was making as well is that natural environments actually replenish your brain, whereas urban ones require your brain to stay alert, which drains your mental resources. If you think about that for a second, right, when you're walking down a road, you have to think about traffic. You're looking at the stores. Someone may say something weird or look at you different, right? You've got all these alerts. Whereas when you're in nature, I went from my morning hike. I may say good morning to a few people on the way that I bumped into, but beyond that, I can just absorb the green in nature. So what I recommend you do is every hour, five minutes, three things, walk, water, window, get up and walk, even if it's indoors. If you can get outdoors, do it, walk to a window if you can't get outdoors and look out as far as possible, as far into the distance till your eyes can hopefully spot some green. And if they can't spot some green, just look into the sky. And the third is water to hydrate. If you can do that five minutes on every hour, I promise you the rest of those 55 minutes will be a lot easier. And it's even more important because according to the ergonomics team at Cornell University, sitting for longer than 20 minutes has negative effects on your body, including back and neck problems, which we all know about, right? We've all experienced this. And research shows that stand-up desks can boost productivity and cognitive function. And standing up helps you burn calories. It helps you stretch out increases blood flow and engages your core, your glutes and your leg muscles. So you're fully present and even do a little bit of a workout. And so the idea of 20 minutes, and it's not natural, right? Like even when I'm recording this podcast, I'm sitting for most of it. And so even if every hour you can get up for five minutes and stretch, as I said, walk, water, window and remember that, it starts breaking up these patterns and breaking up these bad habits that we've developed. And that just become a part of our everyday life. And so we can even find that balance in our work day. Now, one of the things that a lot of us are experiencing is brain fog. And I hope this one really resonates with a lot of you. I think for a lot of us, one of the biggest reasons why we feel stressed from our tasks and work is that work is plastered everywhere. Maybe you have posteds everywhere, maybe you have notes everywhere. Maybe you have, you know, just multiple documents open, multiple tabs open. And what we realize is that the brain is just not good at dealing with a lot of things, right? When you're experiencing, even if you're not feeling stressed, you can deal with up to seven things only. And when you are stressed, you can only deal with three things, right? Our ability to deal with more stressful things diminishes by more than half. And so if you've got stuff everywhere and it's not organized, it starts to create a lot of untidyness externally and internally. Now, most successful people and productive people don't even use to-do lists. They have scheduled tasks. So one of the things that I use is time boxing where all the tasks are already in my calendar. And so I can just open up my calendar every day and look at what I have to do next. I don't have to think about what I have to do next. I don't have to plan for how long it will take. So switch away from to-do lists and switch towards time boxing, right? To-do lists are a thing of the past because the problem is you make a to-do list. Then you're trying to decide, well, which one do I do next? You waste a time. Then you think, well, how long is that going to take? I don't know. You wasted time. Even if you tick off everything off your to-do list, there's always more to do. And it feels overwhelming. And if you don't tick off things off your to-do list because you didn't give yourself a set an amount of time, sometimes tasks that shouldn't take that long get extended for such a long period of time. And so I really want you to consider the practice of time boxing. I'll do a whole session on it as well. Hopefully sooner. But time boxing is basically the idea that every Sunday you sit down and you look at what you have to achieve the week ahead and you actually put it in the calendar and give it a set amount of time. So you have only two hours to record a podcast and script here. You have only one hour to have a meeting or 30 minutes to have this meeting. You don't just move with, oh yeah, I'll go for lunch and maybe a week or four hours, maybe it won't, maybe I'll get this done because then you lose that feeling of fulfillment and accomplishment. I want to share with you one last thing on today's episode. And I hope this really hits you and I hope it really helps you. Focus on the relationships at work as much as the work. One of the reasons why work is stressful is because we don't trust people and they don't trust us. It's stressful because we haven't built community. It's harder because we don't have relationships and people don't want to help and support us. And so don't be negligent or neglectful of people at work because you think, hey, it pays the bills. I took care of I'm out because that I makes it harder. So I hope today's given you a different view. I didn't want to just give you a bunch of well-being tips, which you already know. I know you practice those, but I actually wanted to change your relationship with work. And I promise you, if you took notes today, share them on Instagram, pass this along to a friend, discuss how you can do this with each other, and I'll see you on another episode of On Purpose. Thank you so much. I hope that you go and grab my new book, "Eight Rules of Love" at 8RulesOfLove.com. And come and see me on tour at jsheddytour.com. I'm bringing love to a city near you. I cannot wait. Thank you. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on? Biggie. You put on biggie when you feel uncomfortable? I don't want to get confident. This is DJ Hesterprins Music Is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist, 12 months, 12 areas of your life. Money, love, career, confidence, this isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hesterprins Music Is Therapy, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mine control is real? If you get control of the Avery of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neuro-linguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to mind games on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, gorgeous, it's Lala Kent, host of "Untraditional Lala." My days of filling up cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here, on my podcast "Untraditional Lala," I'm still that Lala, you either love or love to hate. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's "Untraditional Lala." Listen to "Untraditional Lala" on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.