Work-life integration: an expert overview

Just what exactly does it mean to have a good, healthy work-life balance, and how does one effectively integrate their professional life with their personal life? In a technology-dominated era, how can we really switch off and avoid burnout and exhaustion? Here to answer these questions and more is highly esteemed and experienced London-based psychiatrist, Dr Sunil Raheja.

In your view, what is the ideal work-life balance that business owners should strive towards?

Firstly, when business owners think about work-life balance, they really need to get some common misconceptions out of their minds. These misconceptions, in many ways, are limiting overall progress and satisfaction in life.

How much of life is actually truly balanced? The conception of work-life balance assumes that your giving equal priority to everything in your life. Even the phrase “work-life” sets up a distinction between life and the rest of work, but as far as I know, everybody who works is alive.

So, the idea of a work-life balance is a complete misconception and I think the first thing that senior executives and business leaders need to do is to challenge those limiting beliefs that make us think that we can have it all, so to speak.

The idea of a work-life balance has come from the industrial age, from a way of thinking that you make this distinction between your personal life and professional life. Bearing this in mind then, a much better phrase is work-life integration, or even better, life integration.

Both one’s personal and professional aspects of life impact each other, so if we can integrate our lives fully, then we can achieve more of the success and significance that we all strive for.

What is an example of a bad work-life balance and how can this affect one’s mental well-being?

An example of a bad work-life balance is when we try to live life with no understanding that we are human beings, not human doings. So, in a sense, we live life with no margin, with back-to-back meetings, and we don’t give ourselves time to rest and recuperate. We just keep going, going, going, and then, eventually, we collapse.

That, however, is detrimental to our health and a recipe for burnout, and disaster, really. What is much healthier is if you think of a sine wave, and those periods of activity need to be balanced by periods of rest and recuperation that are as deep and if you like, almost as intense as the periods of activity.

When you follow that pattern, then you go on indefinitely and the big trick that often senior leaders don’t realise is that when life gets busier, we tend to think: “oh, I haven’t got time to do the things that rejuvenate me, I haven’t got time to do some exercise or to take short breaks, I need to just plough on through.”

If you do that, though, and you keep on going, going, going, you’re going to basically burn yourself out. In fact, a counterintuitive trick is to think in this way: as life gets busier and busier and more intense, I need to then balance those periods of rest and recuperation, which means that I can go on indefinitely.

How important is a healthy work-life integration for people’s overall well-being?

I would say that it is everything, because you only have one body and you live in it. If your health suffers because you’re trying to cram too much into a 24-hour day, you’ll find yourself getting more and more ratty and irritated and exhausted.

Not to get this right (work-life integration), will mean downright disaster in both your personal and professional life. We are human beings, not human doings.

In may aspects of our lives, particularly for senior business leaders, it’s so easy for us to get wrapped up in the goals that we set for ourselves, which will ultimately come at a cost. It is so much better to pace yourself and really ask yourself “is this goal that I’m striving towards really something that I should be doing” and “is there a way for me to achieve this goal that doesn’t drain and exhaust me"?

As a senior business leader, how can stress and responsibility be managed effectively?

I think one of the key things to understand is that you can never fully manage life. You can manage your energy, but you can never fully manage and control life. The only person who we can actually control is ourselves.

Particularly in this day and age, where technology is on 24/7 and there is never any real clear finish line, there’s no real way to end work. Thus, we need to ensure that we’re able to out the right boundaries in place so that we are not “on” all the time. Not doing so will be a recipe for burnout, damaging stress and an overall damaging affect to our well-being.

What are some of the key factors to consider when it comes to integrating a good work-life balance into your life?

The first thing I would stress is understanding that it’s work-life integration. It’s all of life, it’s not just work opposed to my (personal) life, but rather integrating the things that we do in our day-to-day jobs and for the rest of our lives together.

So, if I can make sure that my self-care is optimised and I can put my best foot forward into my work life, that is going to reap rewards and is simply the best way. Ensuring you prioritise simple things such as sleep, good nutrition, and rest and recuperation, will all make a huge difference to one’s overall health and ability to integrate a healthy work-life balance into their lives.

In your expert opinion, why does it seem to be so difficult for us to “switch off” and prioritise a healthy work-life integration?

There seems to be this common mindset, this belief that we can allow to filter into our minds, that “I just need to get this done, and then I can relax.” The problem is, though, getting this done means that something else comes up, and then something else, and so, work can become all-consuming.

If we can grasp the concept of becoming a fully well-rounded individual in body, mind and spirit, and fully integrated, then I can be fully immersed wherever I am. The power to fully engage and be fully present is not only very effective, but it is also incredibly fulfilling.

This is exactly what I stress to my patients and try and help them with: understanding that it is indeed possible to have a life of significance and where one feels fully integrated from the inside out.

Dr Sunil Raheja is an exceptionally well-regarded psychiatrist who can help you integrate a health-benefiting work-life balance into your life. Check out his Top Doctors profile here today to book a consultation with him.