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What do they want now… Cropley advises switching off from work and
unwinding with cooking, gardening or seeing friends. Photograph: MBI/Alamy
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The combination of smartphones and increasing pressures at
work has blurred the boundaries between work and home and made it impossible
for people to switch off at the end of the working day, according to an expert
in health psychology.
Dr Mark Cropley, a
professor at the University of Surrey and author of a new book “The Off-Switch:
Leave work on time, relax your mind but still get more done”, said not reading
your emails after office hours can improve your health and productivity at
work.
“Work has a nasty habit
of creeping up on some people. Before realizing it they find themselves working
in the evenings, either finishing projects or checking emails to make life
easier for the next day,” Cropley said. “But this means they can’t switch off.
They’ll be in bed and their mind will still be on work. They’ll go round and
round in circles thinking ‘I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that.’ Then they
go back to work the next day feeling more fatigued and more likely to make
mistakes.”
The Guardian UK report continues:
Cropley explained that
switching off actually leaves your mind clearer for the next day. “We’re at our
most creative when we’re unwinding. Doing something completely different, like
socializing with friends or doing the gardening, can sometimes produce the
solution to a problem. It’s like running a hundred metres: people can run it
quite quickly, but if you keep doing this you become slower and slower. By
unwinding and getting away from the work situation, you become more engaged and
energised,” he said.
People are finding it
increasingly hard to switch off due to a combination of better technology and
greater paranoia, according to Cropley. With smartphones, it’s easier to check
emails at home, and the current economic situation means people are more
worried about losing their jobs and want to be seen to be working hard. But
though working in the evenings might be OK in the short term, in the long term
it can create serious health issues. “People who can’t switch off … have
sleeping problems, concentration problems, and other issues. These are a result
of both physiological and behavioural mechanisms,” he said.
“Physiologically, people who can’t switch off
are tense and irritable, they have high blood pressure, a high heart rate, and
that puts stress on the cardiovascular system. We’ve also shown that people who
can’t switch off have high levels of cortisol, which is seen as the stress
hormone.
“Behaviourally, our
studies show that people who can’t switch off in the evening tend to eat more
fatty and sugary foods, such as crisps, biscuits and cakes. It could be that people
are using food to feed their emotion. For example, when people feel tense they
turn to chocolate. In the long-term this adds more saturated fat to the body,
which results in an increase in cholesterol.”
So is it better for
employers to not email employees after work hours? “Definitely, though trying
to convince them to do this is another matter. At some organizations that I
work with, there’s a culture where people answer emails till 10 o’clock at
night and don’t escape work at all.”
But Cropley added that a
blanket ban on after-hours work – as in France last year, when it was reported
that employers were banned from contacting employees outside of office time –
is not practical. “In Japan, they tried a system called closed overtime, which
meant the office lights would go out after a certain hour. When companies
actually tried to put this in place employees found a way around it. People
were known to sit there in the dark working. It’s very difficult knowing where
to draw the line, because when you’ve got deadlines, having all the servers and
emails down could create more stress.”
The answer, Cropley said,
is to educate our bosses and colleagues not to expect answers from us after
we’ve left the office. “The problem is that people just get into a routine of
answering emails all the time. But we need to take control of our life outside
of work. We’ll be more respected for it.”
Dr Mark Cropley’s advice
on how to switch off:
1. Develop an
unwinding ritual at the end of the day. Don’t start bigger projects just before
you’re about to leave because leaving tasks unfinished allows them to remain on
your mind. Instead of abruptly stopping work, try to do more mundane jobs in
the last 20 minutes – things like tidying your desk, cleaning your cup or mug,
and emptying the drawers will help your mind get into the process of relaxing.
2. Set up an
out-of-office email as soon as you leave work. This will stop bosses and
colleagues expecting you to respond.
3. When
commuting home, do things that will help you switch off. Read on the train or
listen to the radio if you’re driving.
4. As soon as
you get home, put everything that’s to do with work out of sight. Switch your
phone off, put your briefcase away, and change your clothes.
5. Find 15-20
minutes to just sit and relax and reflect on the day. Do it in a detached way.
Don’t try to solve any problems, just let the thoughts come and go. Sit in the
garden a park, or in a nice armchair at home. Have a tea, coffee or a glass of
wine. Meditate or read a newspaper. Anything that gives you respite from work.
6. Develop a
hobby or do something that distracts your mind. It needs to be something that
requires your attention and something that you enjoy doing. For some people it
could be ballroom dancing, for others it could be fishing. Having young
children also helps you switch off, because they require your attention and
stop you from thinking about work.
7. Do something physical
instead of watching endless hours of TV, especially if you’re mentally tired.
Sitting down and watching TV can make you more tired than working. And it will
stop you from sleeping at night because it prevents you from using up energy.
8. Cook a meal
instead of sticking food in the microwave. Preparing a meal requires you to
concentrate on the ingredients and the cooking process; it uses cognitive
effort.
9. Don’t become
completely obsessed about switching off. If occasional work-related thoughts
come into your mind just accept them.
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