Hustle Culture and Toxic Productivity : Workplace Mental Health

 

Introduction

Can overwork kill? It seems so. A few of us may have heard about Karoshi, a Japanese term which literally means ‘Death from Overwork’.  Initially limited only to Japan, this occupational phenomenon has become increasingly prevalent and even predominant in several parts of the globe. 

A brief recap is that following World War II, Japan’s economy was in tatters. To give a boost, everyone started putting in extra hours and soon the economic boom began. However, everything comes at a cost and the price for this was beginning to be paid by people’s lives when the overwork induced deaths began to be reported in the late 1960s. As always, nobody heeded to the warning signs and instead of decreasing, the numbers kept mounting.

The ‘Tech Era’

However, over the next few decades, instead of making workplace reforms, this kind of over consuming work patterns spread to other parts of the world, thanks to the tech revolution of the early 1990s. This led to ‘Hustle Culture’, a working pattern which glorifies being constantly busy, neglecting others domains of our lives. Work becomes life and life becomes work.

During the IT boom of 1990-2000, tech industry came into limelight and Silicon Valley became the epicenter of global trends. Whatever happened there, was being replicated in other parts of the world. A typical techie lifestyle included working for extensive hours, survive on coffee and fast foods, minimal social contact, sleeping on office couches and push harder, even when they felt exhausted. 

As tech giants spread their tentacles through the globe, so did their lifestyles. Their achievements gets glorified in the media but nobody talks about the down effects of such lifestyles. We are increasingly being familiar with terms like ‘start-ups’, ‘unicorns’, ‘investors’, ‘funding’, ‘venture capitalist’, ‘angel investor’, but how many of us know about ‘hustle culture’, ‘toxic productivity’, ‘burnout’, ‘workplace stress’ or Karoshi?

 

Why Work is Important?

                                                                    

Our life is like this pie chart with different domains and work is just one of them. These domains are dynamic and interactions between them determine how balanced our lives are. 

If we like the work that we do, then it inherently gives a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Work also aids in making our lives stable and secure by providing financial source. Hence, our work, in conjunction with other aspects of our lives can make us resilient and pull us through tough times.

Work takes over Life: Hustle Culture

However, when we become increasingly preoccupied with only our Work domain and do not pay attention to other aspects, our life starts going out of balance. On one aspect, we become obsessed with ceaseless work, without taking breaks, working on holidays or weekends, even skipping meals or sleep to work, neglecting other personal commitments. On a larger level, this kind of work pattern gives birth to the Hustle Culture.

Hustle culture propagates the ideology of 

• being busy with productivity, 
• the relentless pursuit of success as the cost of wellbeing, and 
• at the psychological level, linking our self-worth and self-esteem with professional successes and achievements.

Impact of Hustle culture:

The initial attention and rewards that comes with professional success can be captivating and push us to pursue our work above everything else. Yet, soon enough it starts taking its toll. At one point, this culture promotes overworking just for the sake of working, there's no other motive- financial, purpose, or satisfaction.

Everyone is working just to remain busy doing something. Endless meetings, back to back presentations, conference calls, office parties where again you discuss work or 'networking', paper presentations, publications, conferences to attend, and nonstop instructions on daily basis- how much of this is actually required?

Even our language has been molded to fit into this ideology. 

So, exercise became workout, vacation became staycation, work came to our home and we have work from home, offices became work stations, or shared office space became co-working and the lives of working women turned into walking on a tight-rope. The rapid evolution in electronic media and with the advent of seamless internet connectivity round the clock, the narrative just took off to another level.

Everybody is Hustling!

However, this is not limited to the technology sector any more.  Doctors and other medical professionals like nurses and paramedics, teachers, police force, banking sector, and even our politicians, everyone seems to be on work mode 24/7. Everyone is eternally logged in.

A close friend of mine, teacher by profession, would often lament how she would spend nights preparing question papers, correcting answer sheets, or some other school-related activities, leaving her with bare minimum time for her personal obligations. 

As a result, the consequences were visible within a few years. Her health deteriorated, sleep and appetite was disturbed, she would remain chronically ‘wound up’ or tensed or irritable and simultaneously dwelt in the guilt of not paying enough attention to her daughter. After 14 years, she took the brave decision to finally put a stop, quit her job and focused back on her health, family and writing which was always her passion but had remained on back burner for years.  

Toxic Productivity

At the individual psychological level, hustle culture can be the cause and effect of toxic productivity. It is the need to be productive at all the times, with detrimental impacts to one’s health and wellbeing.

If you constantly feel the need to work or are unable to relax and take breaks from work, you might be on the toxic productivity hamster wheel. Other signs are inability to set boundaries between work and other areas of life, always prioritizing work over everything else, feel guilty, low or restless when not working and feeling happy when working, fear of missing out targets or goals, or always ‘busy mode’ on. In common parlance, it is called the ‘Hamster wheel syndrome’.

Reasons behind toxic productivity

Toxic productivity can stem from multiple factors:

• Perfectionist personality traits, 
• Fear of failures, 
• Growing up with overcritical parents or 
• Growing up in an environment where professional success is overvalued,

can mould us into thinking that professional success is the only way of living and to hold onto that success, we need to be continuously working, be productive, otherwise its doomsday for us.

The Impact

Physical Health

Although the health impacts due to overwork has been around for a while, the first systematic study to assess its impact has been taken by World Health Organisation (WHO) and International Labour Organusation (ILO) in 2016.

As of 2016, 

• 488 million people were exposed to working long hours (>55 hours/week), resulting in estimated 
• 745,194 deaths (705,786–784,601) and 
• 23.3 million DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) (22.2–24.4) from 
• ischemic heart disease and stroke combined were attributable to this exposure. 

Two causal pathways were elicited:

1. Release of stress hormones due to long work hours bring about structural and functional dysregulations in the cardiovascular system,

2. Behavioural responses associated with stress like increased tobacco use, alcohol use, physical inactivity, disturbed sleep patterns, and unhealthy eating habits which again impact the cardiovascular system.

Mental Health

The impacts on mental health are pernicious and not easily visible, hence it may be difficult to ascertain its effects until it late. 

Some of the well-acknowledged effects are 

• burnout, 
• anxiety and depression, 
• sleep and appetite disturbances, 
• increased sick days and absenteeism, 
• disturbed personal relationships, 
• low motivation and 
• low productivity.

To make matters worse, sexual or mental harassment, favouritism, internal politics, tuff wars between people at the top, power struggle and bullying increase people’s vulnerabilities and make them prone to develop psychological issues. 

In short, our work and workplace can become brewing cauldrons of disaster. In some cases, the stress may become so overwhelming that many may have thoughts of self-harm and some may even take the extreme step of suicide.

To address these issues, the theme for this year’s mental health day is “Mental Health at Work” to highlight this important and most neglected aspect of our mental health.

Conclusion: Is work everything?

The answer is No. Work is essential but only a part of our lives, a slice of the pie. We have to change this narrative that we need to be continuously working, achieve one target after another so that we to feel good about ourselves and our self-esteem remains scatheless. 

We have to acknowledge the fact that long work hours do not necessarily add any quality. We have to learn to set boundaries when work ends and other aspects of our life begin. We can try switching off our devices once we are done for the day, put away our phones, and unplug ourselves from the continuous flow of work. 

We learn to reconnect with our lives, the people we love and the things we loved doing. We need to learn to get off the Hamster wheel.

Today, a lot of these suggestions may seem difficult or impossible or downright ridiculous to many, however, at one point of our lives, we will have to reconsider how we want to live our lives. This coming year try to find a balance in your life, rather than striving for perfection in just one domain.

Season’s Greetings and a Happy New Year!

Dr. Suhasini Das, MD (Psychiatry)