destress

A recently posted job advertisement from Time Out New York highlighted the overworked everyday routine of Melissa Sinclair, an anonymous employee.

From scrambling to meet deadlines and struggling to hire suitable freelancers, Sinclair is at risk of becoming "burnt out" or wanting to leave.

Not only can Sinclair not find "good enough candidates," she has to do the missing work herself — which includes working on multiple cities. Sinclair is currently "completely swamped and overwhelmed," even with the design team chipping in and helping her.

The proposed solution highlighted in the ad — presumably a private message between two employees — is to hire a full-time photo editor instead of relying on fickle and uncertain freelancers.

Of course, the Internet had a field day — Twitter users even got the hashtag #GiveMelissaARaise trending along with memes and gifs depicting the situation. Since then, the original posting on Indeed has been taken down.

It's all fun and games when we're looking at the situation from the outside.

But what about the actual day to day life of Sinclair? Being overworked and stressed can have damaging effects to your health — sometimes even risking your life.

According to a number of different studies, overworking and stressing can accumulate to various health problems such as trouble sleeping, depression, alcoholism, diabetes, heart disease and impaired memory.

Recent studies have also suggested that overworking might be a factor in approximately 120,000 deaths a year.

If you're stressed out all the time or always dreading the work day, I've got some bad news for you — you're on the fast track to burning out.

Instead of trying to keep up with your current lifestyle, take a breather and rethink your commitments.

Reevaluate your expectations — you're not always going to accomplish those enormous goals you set for yourself and that's okay. Learn how to say no to certain assignments that are unnecessary or will add too much to your workload.

Take vacation days — don't save up all your vacation days until the very end. Space them throughout the year and use them to develop your interests and hobbies. Or just go to the beach!

Don't compare yourself to others — sure, Margaret from the next office over can do a little more than you. But does she have the same lifestyle as you? The same commitments? Realize that everyone is different and it's okay to not have the same accomplishments as everyone else.

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