There is a somewhat toxic assumption that, nowadays, hating your job is only natural. No one likes their work, of course, so just knuckle down and bear with it, is the traditional wisdom. However, while work is always an effort, that doesn’t mean you should stay in a job that you hate. In fact, it can have more profound effects on your mental health and general well-being than you might realize. Here, we’re going to look at those impacts and what you can do about them.
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Stress is no joke
Most obviously, people who are stuck in a job they don’t like are typically dealing with much higher levels of stress. This stress can affect your health in a variety of ways, decreasing your quality of life through problems with sleep, your appetite, body pains, headaches, feelings of isolation, and overwhelming emotions. There are healthy strategies that you can use to manage stress and cope but, at some point, the root causes do need to be addressed.
The feeling of losing potential
It’s not just your current self that you could be harming by sticking to a bad job, but your future self, as well. How often do you think of your potential? Take the Strong Interest Inventory online and you could learn a lot more about what kind of work and activities you would much better enjoy spending your time on. Think about how to start transitioning to that life and plot out an actionable plan that you can get started on. If your work does not fit with the results, then every week you spend in it, you’re denying yourself the opportunity to live a much more fulfilling life.
Mental health in later life
When you’re in the thick of it, stress might be the most common way that mental health issues spawned by the workplace can manifest. However, it has been found in some studies that bad job experiences earlier in life also correlate with diagnosed mental health issues later in life. There is a delay in how these issues develop, which can include things like anxiety, depression, and the risks of an emotional breakdown. Even if you’re not feeling the effects now, you might be more likely to feel them later.
It can even make you sick
The connection between mental health and physical health is so interlinked that it’s not even worth making the distinction between them. For instance, it has been found that your immune system and its ability to fight illness can be directly impacted by the strength of negative emotions in your daily life. While you should be taking efforts to improve your immune response, such as with vitamin C tablets, this means that for the good of your health in general, it’s best think about a transition.
Simply saying “change jobs” isn’t always the easiest advice to give, but it is important to start considering your options and actions that you can take to broaden them. As the points above show, your well-being depends on it.
