During my 16-year career in the NFL and college football, we worked seven days per week during the season. Many coaches wore this as a badge of honor. But by the end of the season, they were exhausted, overweight, and yearning for a day off. And just like clockwork, after the last game, they’d get sick when they finally slowed down.
Although, as coaches and support staff, we wanted our players to be at their best on game day, I can tell you from experience we often were not. I believe this is because we fundamentally didn’t understand stress’s relationship with performance.
Stress isn’t the enemy. It’s the gateway to growth! If you want to improve your fitness, you must stress the body. If you’re going to acquire a new skill, you must deliberately engage in the stress of learning.
Your ability to adapt to stress boils down to this -; the right dose of stress plus the right dose of rest. According to Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye, “Stress isn’t what kills us. It’s our reaction to it.” To adapt to stress and thrive, our bodies need consistent restful and fulfilling sleep and deliberate breaks from stress.
Now that I’m a full-time entrepreneur, the pressure to work 24/7 is even more intense, and it’s up to me to set a healthy rhythm for my team and myself. As I’ve struggled with my internal desire to stay busy, I’ve leaned heavily on what I’ve learned from my faith.
In the Judeo-Christian faith, we are instructed to cease working once a week and rest, just as God rested on the seventh day after creating the earth. In the book of Genesis, it is recorded that “On the seventh day God had completed His work that he had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that he had done.”
According to Pastor Malcolm Marshall, the chaplain for the Houston Rockets, “The word ‘rested’ in this verse is the Hebrew word ‘shabbat.’ One of the main definitions of shabbat is ‘to cease or stop.’ Another way of understanding this verse is to say God stopped or ceased creating on the 7th day, not because he was tired, but because all He had created was good, and His work was finished.
Doesn’t this sound like great advice for us? How great would it be to spend one day ceasing from work, to be thankful, enjoy our loved ones, and reflect on a job well done?
Even if you don’t belong to a faith tradition, the scientific evidence is overwhelming that our health and work quality suffers when we overwork ourselves. A systemic analysis from the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization (ILO), using data from 2,324 cross-sectional surveys and 1,742 quarterly survey data sets, determined that in 2016, 488 million people, or 8.9% of the global population, were exposed to working long hours (≥ 55 hours/week). This exposure was attributed to an estimated 745,194 deaths and 23.3 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) combined from ischemic heart disease and stroke.
This represents 4.9% of all deaths and 5.9% of all DALYs just from working too much!
Don’t get me wrong, work is good. Outside of providing monetary compensation that can be used to support yourself and your loved ones, meaningful work brings us a deep sense of satisfaction. But, too much work without a break will leave you burned out and can hurt your health.
Here’s what I recommend: Take one day per week off. On that day, do whatever you can to stay away from work. If that means turning off your phone, do it! Disconnect, relax, reflect, connect with others, and rest.
In this way, you can leverage the power of intentional stress and rest to unlock your performance potential and push back on burnout.