As someone who has had both fantastic and terrible jobs in my career so far, I’ve learned to tell the difference between a healthy job and an unhealthy one. The unfortunate reality is that, if you work for a company, the chances are pretty good that you’ll one day find yourself in a stress-inducing position that’s bad for your health. Here are nine signs that can help you figure out whether that’s the case.
#1: Your allergies are flaring up when they’re normally never a problem.
According to WebMD, when you’re stressed out, your body releases hormones and other chemicals. We hear about the hormone cortisol (the stress hormone) the most, but your body also releases histamine. That’s the chemical that leads to allergy symptoms. The good news is that stress doesn’t cause allergies. The bad news is that it can make your existing allergies worse by increasing the amount of histamine in your bloodstream.
If your allergies are worse, but you don’t notice any of the other symptoms in this list, then… you’re probably just allergic to something around you. But if the reaction comes along with a few other items in this list, then you might just be allergic to your job.
#2: You often find yourself dwelling on your job in a negative way outside of work.
If you’re in an unhealthy job, you might find you have trouble disconnecting from work even when you want to. You come home, try to turn off the switch, but instead you find your mind wandering to something that happened at work when you really should be focusing on your conversation with your significant other.
This is a frustrating one because it starts to affect other areas of your life outside your job. It can affect your relationships, your hobbies, and other things if you’re not careful.
#3: You’re dreaming about your job.
Unless you’re doing your dream job, having dreams about work is a red flag. It likely means you’re dwelling on your work too much – see above.
Recurring work dreams are your body’s way of trying to get your attention – maybe you feel panicked in your dream, or you’re scared of something or someone. This is your subconscious trying to communicate with your waking mind. According to Forbes, there are some common themes that tend to play out in work-related dreams – maybe yours fit into one of those categories.
In any case, having work-related dreams is often a sign that your work is stressing you out to the point that your body is trying to tell you about it. And that’s an unhealthy place to be.
#4: Sunday nights give you anxiety.
You know what Sunday night means? It’s only hours before Monday morning hits, and you’re back at work. If this is your mentality, it’s likely because there’s something you’re worried about at work – something you wish you didn’t have to go back to.
The stronger the anxiety, the more severe the situation at work generally is. I have seen this in countless people who are stressed out by their jobs.
#5: You have trouble falling or staying asleep.
This can again stem from thinking about work too much outside the office. Sometimes those thoughts literally keep you up at night. Not all insomnia is related to stress, but stress can definitely cause insomnia, and there’s plenty of research out there to prove it.
We know how important a good night’s sleep is to our health. So when you’re unable to sleep because you’re having thoughts about work, it takes a real toll on your body in other ways, creating a snowball effect of sorts.
If this describes you, there are a few things you can try to get back to sleep. One is progressive muscle relaxation, or PMR for short – more on that here. Basically, it involves tensing and relaxing your muscles progressively from your head, all the way down to your toes.
Another technique is journaling. I’m a huge advocate of this personally. Ever watch or read Harry Potter? Remember the pensieve? Dumbledore used it to store his thoughts. He would touch his wand to his temple, pull out a silvery thread of thought, and add it to the pensieve.
What, you don’t remember that? Don’t lie! Anyway, journaling kind of has the same effect in real life. When you write your thoughts down, in sense you’re giving your mind permission to let that thought go. It’s been captured in writing, so it need remain in your head no longer. Here’s why I like it: putting thoughts or feelings into writing forces you to articulate them clearly. The act of getting clear on what’s bothering you alone can sometimes be enough to help you process and overcome it.
Lastly, try reading a book. Fiction or non-fiction, it doesn’t really matter. Just read something. I find doing so has the effect of making me sleepy, and it’s way easier to get to sleep after I’ve read a chapter or two of a book.
#6: You find yourself getting sick more often or more severely than normal.
The stress hormone cortisol is a nasty, nasty thing. Not only do high levels of it interfere with learning and memory function, it can also lead to lower bone density (seriously), weight gain, high blood pressure and cholesterol, heart disease, and a weakened immune system.
Our bodies weren’t designed to function with high levels of stress for extended periods of time. Fight or flight; that was the name of the game, and this is exactly why you need to take steps to fix your situation if you find yourself in an unhealthy job.
Find yourself getting sick every month when you normally are out only once a year? Does a common cold knock you on your rear, when you usually only get the sniffles? Yeah, you might want to chalk it up to stress.
#7: You notice rashes, eczema or other skin conditions that normally aren’t an issue.
Another fun symptom of stress, if you’re noticing a correlation between job stress and random rashes or eczema on your skin, there’s probably a real linkage there. Fortunately, these conditions often go away once you’ve taken care of the source of the stress.
#8: You notice you’re having heart palpitations.
If you notice your heart literally skipping a beat at the office, it might be love, sure… or, it might be due to work-related stress. Heart palpitations are when your heart doesn’t beat like it should. It may skip beats, flutter, or beat too quickly. All of these can be caused by work-related stress.
This is dangerous if it goes on too long – remember that stat about cortisol causing heart disease? Think of this as a very early indicator of that.
#9: You have digestive problems.
Not gonna get into the details here, but if your stomach isn’t acting the way it’s supposed to, and it wasn’t directly because of something you ate, there’s a strong chance that there’s something else at play.
Bonus: what does your friggin’ intuition say?
Listen, do you really need the above tips to figure out whether you’re in an unhealthy job? What does your heart have to say about it? Try as you might to ignore it, your heart and soul won’t lie if you dare to stop and listen. The reality is though, if you read this far and clicked on one or more of those links up there, the writing on the wall is pretty clear. So what will you do about it?
Wrapping it Up
I know this isn’t exactly a smile-inducing post, but I’m not sorry about it. The reality is that there are a ton of people out there who are stuck in unhealthy jobs and either don’t know it, refuse to acknowledge it, or are too scared to change it, and the thought of that makes me want to take passionate action.
Because you know what? We get one shot on this earth. One life to live. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a crappy job knock me down for any extended period of time. I have too many amazing experiences I want to have, things I want to do and see, people I want to meet, to let the stress of an unhealthy job ruin it all.
I get it, you have debt and expenses to pay for each month. But guess what? The world of work is changing, and there are more ways than one to earn a paycheque. And you know what else? I’d gladly sacrifice a few material comforts for the sake of taking a lower-paying job that makes me happy and preserves my health. Wouldn’t you?
