Do Our Home Lives Impact Work?

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Leave Your Personal Life At The Door"?

Have you ever said it?

Well, in the past I have talked about how and why this common phrase proves you are not qualified to lead, but today I am going to dive further into the science of why it makes NO sense.

The Study

A study was done at the University of Auckland where they asked 4,005 (34.9% female, 64.7% male, 0.3% other; average age 48) to wear smartwatches that tracked their blood pressure and heart rates.

During the study, the participants were also asked to answer questions about some of the closest relationships such as,

• To what extent did you feel satisfied with this person today?
• Did you experience conflict with this person today?

This was all done in order to understand the participant's stress and their ability to cope with life's stresses.

What they discovered was that those with more negative relationships at home also suffered the following:

• Higher Stress Levels
• More Negativity
• Less Effective Coping Mechanisms
• Higher Diastolic Blood Pressure
• Higher Heart Rate Reactivity (i.e. Their Heart Rate spiked under any stress)
• Significant Blood Pressure Reactivity (i.e. Their Blood Pressure also spiked under any stress)
• Impaired Physiological Functioning

Why is this important to understand for business?

These factors impacted EVERY part of their lives, not just at home.

It has EVERYTHING to do with business!

The Impact At Work

As I often say, ALL stress adds together.

This means that people's stress from home adds to their stress from work.

On top of this, if people are experiencing stress at home, they will have less effective coping mechanisms.

This means that ON TOP of the stress being added together, they are less likely to be able to handle the stress well.

This will lead to faster rates of challenges, faster rates of "checking out", and faster rates of burnout.

All of these factors will make it nearly impossible for your team to get into Flow States, which means that their productivity will be hindered and will be less creative in their work.

This also means that their ability to see problems and solve those problems will also be hindered.

They may "do the work", but the chances for mistakes and missing things will dramatically increase.

Then we can dive into the "more negativity".

Do you enjoy being around negative people?

Of course not, no one really does, but if there are problems happening at home, it's likely that people will be more negative.

This then not only impacts the individual, but it impacts everyone around that individual.

It will create more negativity on the team overall.

Negativity tends to create silos in business.

All Silos create problems in business, and the more negativity there is, the more silos are created.

Instead of your team working to accomplish unified goals, you will have a team fighting against each other working on personal goals that benefit no one.

Then, we get into the blood pressure and heart rate challenges.

When these start to spike in our lives, and you mix it with the constant stress both at work and at home, it is almost a guaranteed sentence to more health problems.

These individuals will end up needing to take more sick days and more trips to the hospital.

These mean increased costs for businesses both in benefits, as well as lost productivity.

In 2019, it was estimated by IBI (Integrated Benefits Institute), that employers spent $575 Billion on employees' poor health.

That was BEFORE the shock around the world in 2020 which only increased instances of stress, poor health, doctor's visits, and costs for employers!

The other issue that happens with Heart Rate specifically is that our Heart Rates can DIRECTLY impact each other.

It is a natural function of our Neurocardiology.

This means that if there is someone on your team experiencing stress at home, and their Heart Rates become more Reactive (as this research proves happens), then YOUR Heart Rate is almost guaranteed to become more reactive as well!

Unless of course you train your HRV purposefully to avoid this outcome, but few Leaders actually do this (or know which type to train, because there is more than one way to train HRV!)

This will mean that you (and likely EVERYONE on your team) will be directly impacted by the home stress someone is experiencing.

You will accumulate more stress, stress which isn't even yours, which will lead to more Dis-Stress, worsening health, less productivity, and potentially worse outcomes.

Final Takeaway

The science proves it, it is impossible to separate "Work" from "Home".

That isn't how Life works.

If you are a Leader who says to "Leave your personal life at the door", stop.

It not only proves you aren't qualified to lead, as I said in a previous article, but it also doesn't make sense scientifically.

If you want to avoid all of these problems, here are a few things you'll want to do.

• Create A Safe Work Environment
• Find Resources To Help Your Employees
• Understand Your Employees Lives To Help Plan Work
• Train Your HRV Coherence (Find someone qualified to help, like myself)
• Design More Flow States Into Work
• Help Employees Reduce Stress, But Still Stay Productive

If you work on these things, your Leadership capabilities will skyrocket, and you'll succeed where most "Leaders" struggle.