There’s a difference between forming a healthy habit and developing an obsession. Sometimes I wonder if individuals or corporate wellness marketers realize this difference.
Helping employees sleep better is a lifestyle change workplace wellness has taken on, but simply strapping on a sleep-tracker might not be your best bet to catch more ZZZs. In fact, for some people it may actually make their sleep worse. The New York Times looked into this phenomenon in July 2019 in the story “The Sad Truth About Sleep-Tracking Devices and Apps.”
Personal tech columnist Brian X. Chen tracked his sleep using an Apple Watch and some software downloaded on his phone. He shared his own experience in this column and backed it up with research from Rush University Medical College and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
“In their study, the researchers warned that sleep-tracking tech could provide inaccurate data and worsen insomnia by making people obsessed with achieving perfect slumber, a condition they called orthosomnia,” Chen wrote. Health apps don’t necessarily make people healthier, and this was just the latest research to show that.
The story wasn’t completely negative and did also share some potential positives of certain sleep-trackers. While some users get in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night and obsessively checking their sleep patterns, others do say that using these apps genuinely helped them.
Still, this measured, balanced perspective was a valuable, realistic look at the potential behind this technology versus excessively optimistic marketing copy. The bottom line for users of sleep tech was this: “Sleep-tracking apps and devices can be useful for getting a broad look at your sleep, but people should resist drawing conclusions about their sleep health.”
Just as there’s a name for people obsessed with getting perfect sleep, there’s also an eating disorder in which people are so obsessed with being healthy, that it makes them unhealthy. It’s called orthorexia, and it’s something we see in the wellness influencer community. What I wonder is if we also see it in the workplace wellness community.
Also read: Eating disorders belong in your workplace behavioral health strategy
Psycom.net notes some of the problems it causes, including malnutrition, heart conditions and social isolation. “Orthorexia nervosa can easily go unnoticed because it does not seem unusual to be ‘obsessed’ with healthy eating during a time when researchers, health professionals, food marketers, and media seem to constantly change the definition of a healthy diet,” according to the site.
I don’t believe this is out of the realm for employers because of how often organizations try to push wellness programs and the “culture of health” on employees, even the healthy ones who manage their health on their own terms. Not everyone needs to join a workplace program. It’s not necessary for people to do to be good at their job.
Also, for employers who have weight-loss programs at your company, it couldn’t hurt to ask yourself how employees are losing weight. Are they doing it in a healthy way or are they adopting an unhealthy string of diets?
Finally, I’ll mention one more workplace obsession tangentially related to health: productivity. Think about the culture that exists in many organizations in which employees are always trying to do more in a better, faster way, looking for ways to “hack” their productivity and accomplish the most possible. Ultimately, they can’t hit this impossible goal, which can cause stress or anxiety.
This is according to a thought-provoking LinkedIn post last month, and I completely agree. It referenced an article from “The Age” entitled “Why productivity hacks mostly don’t live up to their promise,” which dug into the “success industry” and how it ultimately can’t really make us feel successful. In the end, it makes us feel inadequate and distracted.
The article quoted Vice Media’s Head of Innovation Mark Adams, who has a TED talk about the “cult” of extreme productivity. As you realize there are always more hacks and you can always do more, it creates a sense of chronic anxiety, he said.
“It’s time to take a breath and accept that it is another trap,” he said. “This whole billion-dollar success industry … it doesn’t work.”
I also enjoyed this quote from psychologist Marny Lishman:
“The wellness industry has a lot to answer for – it’s pushing us to be busier, better and constantly dangling the pressure to reach our potential in front of us — when often the answer to wellness resides right inside of us in the enjoyment of the moment… A little chaos, a little adversity, mistakes and failures – all of these help guide us throughout life. We are missing out on these if we are life hacking everything.”
My message to employers based on all this is, rather than constantly trying to push your employees to be better, faster, stronger and healthier, think about the culture you’re creating. Do you have realistic expectations for how productive or health-conscious your employees should be? Or do you expect employees to be like machines that can be constantly upgraded with no impact on their well-being?
A while back a source mentioned to me that many people have a limited view on mental illness. It’s depression; it’s anxiety; or maybe it’s PTSD. But there are many more mental illness conditions to address. Like eating disorders.