We are all looking forward to the weekend, the holidays or just that long-awaited time to rest..
During that time we dedicate ourselves to what we like, what we enjoy and what ultimately makes up our hobbies. It may seem like everyone wants that, but they don't.
Although it may seem illogical there are people who do not want to go on vacation, who hate weekends and hate their free time, people who would like to spend all their time working. Who are we talking about?
We talk about workaholic or workaholic people, those people who cannot live without working as they have an excessive and uncontrollable need to work constantly, to the point of making this need a dent in physical health, emotional health, and social relationships of these people. But why?
Before entering into the search for causes, we must know the origin of the term, the term Workaholic It derives from the fusion of two English words, Work (work) and Aholic (Alcoholic) and was popularized in Wayne Oates' book "Confessions of a workaholic" (1971).
The causes that lead these people to develop addiction are multiple and varied.
On the one hand, there are people who develop it because they have a great lust for power, or desire to get money but on the other there are people who become workaholics because they present major organizational problems and inability to delegate tasks.
Finally, we must not forget that it can also be caused by family problems that cause the worker to postpone their arrival home.
In addition, it must be taken into account that on many occasions the workaholic environment does not see this behavior as bad, since society has the implicit construct that working is good and that the more it is done, the more efficient the worker is. Although this really doesn't have to be this way.
For the workaholic person, work is the center of his life, It is he himself who decides and places it in his number 1 priority, even before leisure, family or social life, in fact it is common for workaholics to take work home to finish it at night, or on weekends.
The symptomatology of workaholics can be grouped into various types of symptoms.
On the one hand we have those cognitive-type symptoms, Workaholics tend to have anxiety, irritability and depression caused by an incessant need to work harder and harder and spend more time at work continuously.
Also for a constant concern about your job performance that causes a feeling of constant overwhelm and at the same time an emotional emptiness and underestimation of any activity that is not work.
These cognitive symptoms lead us to the physiological symptoms which are stress and insomnia as a result of the anxiety they experience due to work and being constantly worried about their work performance, which at the same time causes workaholics high blood pressure and vascular problems.
Workaholics have a compulsive need to constantly make to-do lists, jot down every detail on their agenda, and an inability to stay off work for long periods without experimenting. anxiety symptoms.
Most of the workaholics tend to be middle-class men who live in the cities in the age group between 40-50 years, Marisa Bosqued in her book "Don't let your work weigh you down" (2000) even classifies workaholics in several groups:
First talk about the complacent, a workaholic that we can say is less ambitious and more sociable than the rest, this only seeks the approval of the boss and coworkers
Then we find in the second group the controllers, ambitious people who hate losing control, when this happens and they think their job performance is declining they become anxious and irritable.
Finally we have the narcissistic type workaholic, It is very similar to the controller but in stressful situations it can suffer depersonalization and derealization with respect to the situation it is experiencing.
But all is not lost for these people, with psychological therapies they can improve a lot to the point of ceasing to be workaholics.
Of course the first step to cure the problem is to recognize that you have a problem, until the workaholic does not recognize that it is, there is little we can do.
Then the therapies go through establish alternative plans to work and gradually change them until a balance is achieved, learning to prioritize what is urgent over what is not and learning to delegate tasks.
All this must be complemented with relaxation techniques that help the person control their anxiety, a good technique for this would be to train the person in Mindfulness gradually.
The benefits of this third generation therapy will be quite good for Treat Workaholic Person's Anxiety when you start delegating and putting work aside to carry out alternative plans.
Finally also delve into the cognitive schemas of the person and trying to change them would be optimal to achieve an adequate detoxification, especially those schemes based on the perfectionism and the meaning of success.
As we have seen, workaholic addiction to work is a very serious health issue that should not be taken lightly, since these people really have a problem and cannot enjoy life..
All this causes them serious problems and not only cognitive but also physiological, so helping them to get out of this situation is important and necessary, because after all they also have an addiction.
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