{"id":32751,"date":"2021-09-28T07:34:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T03:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=32751"},"modified":"2021-09-28T07:34:20","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T03:34:20","slug":"work-life-balance-what-really-makes-us-happy-might-surprise-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/work-life-balance-what-really-makes-us-happy-might-surprise-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Work-life balance: what really makes us happy might surprise you"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tipping the scales away from work may not be the wisest way to recalibrate your work-life balance<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/span>Completing stressful tasks gives us a unique and valuable form of happiness.<\/span>\u00a0Rawpixel.com\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Finding the right work-life balance is by no means a new issue in our society. But the tension between the two has been heightened by the pandemic, with workers increasingly dwelling over the nature of their work, its meaning and purpose, and how these affect their quality of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Studies suggest people are leaving or planning to leave their employers in record numbers in 2021 \u2013 a \u201cgreat resignation\u201d that appears to have been precipitated by these reflections. But if we\u2019re all reconsidering where and how work slots into our lives, what should we be aiming at?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to believe that if only we didn\u2019t need to work, or we could work far fewer hours, we\u2019d be happier, living a life of hedonic experiences in all their healthy and unhealthy forms. But this fails to explain why some retirees pick up freelance jobs and some lottery winners go straight back to work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Striking the perfect work-life balance, if there is such a thing, isn\u2019t necessarily about tinkering with when, where and how we work \u2013 it\u2019s a question of why we work. And that means understanding sources of happiness that might not be so obvious to us, but which have crept into view over the course of the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Attempts to find a better work-life balance are well merited. Work is consistently and positively related to our wellbeing and constitutes a large part of our identity. Ask yourself who you are, and very soon you\u2019ll resort to describing what you do for work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our jobs can provide us with a sense of competence, which contributes to wellbeing. Researchers have demonstrated not only that labour leads to validation but that, when these feelings are threatened, we\u2019re particularly drawn to activities that require effort \u2013 often some form of work \u2013 because these demonstrate our ability to shape our environment, confirming our identities as competent individuals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Work even seems to makes us happier in circumstances when we\u2019d rather opt for leisure. This was demonstrated by a series of clever experiments in which participants had the option to be idle (waiting in a room for 15 minutes for an experiment to start) or to be busy (walking for 15 minutes to another venue to participate in an experiment). Very few participants chose to be busy, unless they were forced to make the walk, or given a reason to (being told there was chocolate at the other venue).<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the researchers found that those who\u2019d spent 15 minutes walking ended up significantly happier than those who\u2019d spent 15 minutes waiting \u2013 no matter whether they\u2019d had a choice or a chocolate or neither. In other words, busyness contributes to happiness even when you think you\u2019d prefer to be idle. Animals seem to get this instinctively: in experiments, most would rather work for food than get it for free.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eudaimonic happiness<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The idea that work, or putting effort into tasks, contributes to our general wellbeing is closely related to the psychological concept of eudaimonic happiness. This is the sort of happiness that we derive from optimal functioning and realising our potential. Research has shown that work and effort is central to eudaimonic happiness, explaining that satisfaction and pride you feel on completing a gruelling task.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other side of the work-life balance stands hedonic happiness, which is defined as the presence of positive feelings such as cheerfulness and the relative scarcity of negative feelings such as sadness or anger. We know that hedonic happiness offers empirical mental and physical health benefits, and that leisure is a great way to pursue hedonic happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even in the realm of leisure, our unconscious orientation towards busyness lurks in the background. A recent study has suggested that there really is such a thing as too much free time \u2013 and that our subjective wellbeing actually begins to drop if we have more than five hours of it in a day. Whiling away effortless days on the beach doesn\u2019t seem to be the key to long-term happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n

This might explain why some people prefer to expend significant effort during their leisure time. Researchers have likened this to compiling an experiential CV, sampling unique but potentially unpleasant or even painful experiences \u2013 at the extremes, this might be spending a night in an ice hotel, or joining an endurance desert race. People who take part in these forms of \u201cleisure\u201d typically talk about fulfilling personal goals, making progress and accumulating accomplishments \u2013 all features of eudaimonic happiness, not the hedonism we associate with leisure.<\/span><\/p>\n

The real balance<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This orientation sits well with a new concept in the field of wellbeing studies: that a rich and diverse experiential happiness is the third component of a \u201cgood life\u201d, in addition to hedonic and eudaimonic happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Across nine countries and tens of thousands of participants, researchers recently found that most people (over 50% in each country) would still prefer a happy life typified by hedonic happiness. But around a quarter prefer a meaningful life embodied by eudaimonic happiness, and a small but nevertheless significant amount of people (about 10-15% in each country) choose to pursue a rich and diverse experiential life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given these different approaches to life, perhaps the key to long-lasting wellbeing is to consider which lifestyle suits you best: hedonic, eudaimonic or experiential. Rather than pitching work against life, the real balance to strike post-pandemic is between these three sources of happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lis Ku<\/strong><\/span>
\nSenior Lecturer in Psychology, <\/span>
\nDe Montfort University<\/span><\/p>\n

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* Published in print edition on 28 September 2021<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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