Work Related Issues

Working long hours to the detriment of other activities in your life can be damaging to your mental health.

It is considered very important for each of us to maintain a healthy work/life balance. Making time for family, friends, hobbies and pastimes allows us to relax, have fun, blow off steam and to revitalise before heading back into the workplace. However, the pressure on all of us to work longer hours by over-zealous employers, increasing living costs, family demands and aspirations means that maintaining a healthy work/life balance has become increasingly difficult for many people to achieve.

In 2000, the Department for Education and Employment carried out a survey which reported that around one in eight of us were working an exhausting 60 hours or more a week. Two years later, a similar survey revealed that this had risen to one in six of us, whilst the number of women working these hours had more than doubled.