Health in Business

By Adam  |  21 Sep 2015 09:00:00

Do you run your own eCommerce business? Do you do it alone, or have you expanded to a point where you are able to hire other people? Well, either way it's very admirable and I hope that you are finding the venture to be successful. But if you do do it alone, make sure you're not pushing yourself too hard. Do you have a full time job that you are doing as well in order to make sure you've got a steady income beyond your business? That could mean that you're doing a pretty large number of hours' work each week! A recent study shows that if you are working for fifty-five hours or more a week, you are significantly increasing your risk of a stroke.

So how many hours are you working a week? Might it be best for you to cut down a little? Of course, it's fine for this to happen every now and then; perhaps it was an especially busy week for your business and so you had to put in more hours. I don't want to be alarmist and even if you do work for fifty-five hours every single week, you could still live to be a hundred and thirty and never have a stroke! But it's just worth keeping these things in mind because your health and well-being is important. Not just because you deserve to be feeling well and good (though that is a very good reason to take care of yourself), but also because your business might not do so well if you're making yourself ill.

So, pay attention to the hours you work and try not to let them get too high. I realise that in some situations, working such a large number of hours will be an economic necessity because you'll have a family support and/or bills to pay and it's sad that so many are having to push themselves so hard. But, assuming you have the ability to do so, try to make sure you're not working too much.