Winston Churchill was many things: statesman, soldier, writer. He was one of the first world leaders to raise the alarm about the Nazi threat in the 1930s, and then entered the global imagination for his frontline fight against the axis powers in World War II. While Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the war, he maintained a very demanding schedule, often spending 18 hours a day working. Also, during his tenure, he wrote book after book. By the end of his life he had finished 43 of them, filling 72 volumes.
But Churchill also suffered from a crippling depression, which he called his “black dog” and which plagued him constantly. It seems almost unthinkable that he could be so productive in such a gloomy state that he once said to his physician: “I don’t like standing on the side of a ship and looking down into the water. A gesture of a second would put an end to everything.
Some argue that Churchill’s depression was bipolar and that it was the phases of mania that allowed him to work so hard. But some biographers explain things differently: Churchill’s workaholism was not unrelated to his sufferings, but was caused by them. He was distracted with work. If this interpretation seems forced to you, know that today researchers have discovered that workaholicism is a common addiction, which arises in response to discomfort. And, like many addictions, it makes the situation worse that he would like to alleviate.
A common path
In the United States, tens of millions of people – as many as 10 percent of the total – suffer from a substance addiction at some point in their lives. We know how addictions can creep up on us. In many cases the use of a substance, administered in a controlled manner to relieve the pain of an illness, develops into an abuse disorder. Sometimes the use begins with the therapy indicated by a professional, only when the treatment is suspended, the consumption of the substance continues. The latter is a common path to opioid addiction.
But many people treat themselves right from the start. In 2018, researchers analyzed a decade of data and wrote in the journal Depression and Anxiety that, based on their review of the existing scientific literature, 24 percent of people with an anxiety disorder and nearly 22 percent of people with a mood disorder (such as major depression or bipolar disorder) “cures” itself using alcohol or drugs. Those who resort to this “self-medication” are much more likely to develop a substance addiction. Epidemiological data, for example, revealed that people who ‘self-treated’ for anxiety using alcohol were more than six times more likely to develop persistent alcohol dependence than those who did not.
There is irrefutable evidence that some people “cure” their emotional problems even with work. This can lead to some sort of addiction. Many studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between workaholicism and symptoms of psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and depression, and it has been commonly hypothesized that compulsive work leads to these disorders. But some psychologists have recently argued for reverse causality, that people actually “cure” depression and anxiety with overwork. As the authors of a study published in 2016 in the scientific journal Plos One wrote, “workaholicism (in some cases) develops as an attempt to reduce feelings of anxiety and depression.”
People struggling with workaholism can easily deny that it is a problem and therefore not see the problems they are trying to cure
The 2016 study received great attention for its quality and will no doubt spur further tests of this hypothesis in the coming years. If the results hold, and I suspect they will, the causal relationship could partially explain why so many people increased their work hours during the pandemic. For many months, during the first lockdowns, people had to deal with boredom, loneliness and anxiety; In late May 2020, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that nearly a quarter of American adults reported symptoms of depression (up from 6.5 percent in 2019). . Perhaps some workers have “self-medicated” by doubling their amount of work, to feel engaged and productive.
People struggling with workaholicism can easily deny that it is a problem and therefore fail to see the underlying problems that they are self-medicating. How can work be negative? As Anna Lembke, a Stanford psychiatrist, author of The dopamine era. How to maintain balance in the “everything and now” societyin a recent interview for the podcast How to build a happy life “Even behaviors that were healthy and adaptive in the past – behaviors that we generally, by culture, would consider healthy and beneficial – today become a drug, which makes them more powerful, more accessible, newer, more ubiquitous”. If you’re someone who locks himself in the bathroom at home to check work emails on the phone, this is about you.
Also, when we talk about work, people reward addictive behaviors. No one says, “Wow, did you drink a bottle of gin in one night? You really are an extraordinary drinker.” But if you work 16 hour days you will probably get a promotion.
Despite the vaunted virtues of working hard, the costs will almost certainly outweigh the benefits, as is usually the case in “self-medication” addictions. The burnout (burnout), depression, job stress, and work-life conflict will get worse, not better. Also, as Lembke told me, workaholicism can lead to secondary addictions, such as drug, alcohol, or pornography addiction, which people use to “self-medicate” the problems caused by the primary addiction, often with catastrophic personal consequences.
To find solutions to work addiction, I interviewed my Harvard colleague, Ashley Whillans, author of Time smart: how to reclaim your time and live a happier life (Time Smart: How to Take Back Your Time and Live a Happier Life), for another episode of How to build a happy life. Whillans told me that individual solutions to workaholicism include a greater awareness of how one uses one’s time and a change in mindset that no longer values work over leisure. He recommended three practices to me.
Check how you used your time
For a few days, carefully write down your main activities – work, leisure, errands – as well as the time spent in each one and how you felt. Write down the activities that bring you the most positive mood and that mean the most to you. This will give you two pieces of information: how hard you are working (to make it impossible for you to deny reality) and what you like to do when you are not working (to make healing more enticing).
Plan your downtime
Workaholics tend to minimize the value of extra-work activities, defining them as “pleasant”, and therefore drowning them in work. This is how the fourteenth hour of work, which is rarely productive, replaces an hour you could have spent with your children. Carve out time in your day for non-work activities, just like you do for meetings.
Plan your free time
Don’t leave dead time too free. Unstructured time is an invitation to return to work or to engage in passive activities that are not conducive to well-being, such as browsing your social networks or watching television. You probably have a prioritized to-do list. Do the same with your free time, planning the active pastimes that you most enjoy. If you enjoy phoning a friend, don’t let it happen when you happen to have some time, but plan it and stick to the schedule.
These directions changed my life. I approach my walks, prayer times, and gym sessions as if they were meetings with the president. And when I have nothing planned, my plan is to literally do nothing, not giving in to distractions.
Dealing with a work addiction can make a real difference in our lives. It allows us to spend time with family and friends. It allows us to indulge in non-work pastimes that are not useful, just fun. It allows us to take better care of ourselves, for example by exercising. All of these things have been shown to either increase happiness or reduce unhappiness.
But tackling the problem of workaholicism does not in any case solve the underlying problem that working so intensely should have cured. Perhaps you too have been visited by Churchill’s black dog. Or perhaps your black dog has a different form: a troubled marriage, a chronic sense of inadequacy, perhaps even attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder, all of which have been linked to overwork. Stopping using work to distract yourself is an opportunity to face your problems, perhaps with the help of someone, and thus solve the problem that drove us to work too much.
Confronting the dog can feel scarier than simply addressing the old dog catchers: your boss, your co-workers, your career. But eventually you may find a way to get rid of that dog for good.
(Translation by Federico Ferrone)