Skin related health issues & poor work-life balance faced by freelancers

Freelancing is a rapidly growing working practice today. But in the current times of corona pandemic, more people are now started working as a freelancer. Being a freelancer is always full of challenges. Each day is a new challenge for every freelancer as they have to manage professional work along with household activities.

The growing skin-related health issues are the most challenging problems faces by every freelancer today. Skin issues like eczema, rosacea, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, acne, etc. are commonly seen in freelancers.

Factors that lead to skin-related issues are as follows:

Isolation

Most freelancers love working from home, which means that they work alone all day, which creates a feeling of isolation. Regardless of your personality, if you are not often seeing other people and haven’t communicated with others, you will feel lonely. Isolation can cause depression, and you can even begin to develop antisocial behaviour. While instant messaging and social networking are useful, nothing can replace personal communication with friends and colleagues.

Vitamin D deficiency

Freelancers usually spend most of their daytime inside their homes. This can lead to a deficiency of Vitamin D in their body. The lack of vitamin D may result in various health-related problems like skin breakouts, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis.

Not drinking enough water

It's important to hydrate yourself throughout the day, as water helps get rid of toxins in your body. Most people tend to forget to drink water at regular intervals during the day, and this is also one of the reasons that cause acne.

Stress

Being a freelancer is a tough task to do. And, it is not a cup of tea of all. When you work alone and not as a team the success of the project entirely depend on your efforts. No one can help you or relieve some of the stress that you may experience, so your stress level will naturally increase and intensify. This can lead to insufficient sleep and make you more susceptible to infectious diseases, and ultimately lower down your productivity.

Lack of sleep

Decent sleeping hours are necessary to restore the health of the body. If you do not have enough sleep due to stress, it will affect your skin and can cause dark circles under your eyes.

If you want to eliminate all skin related issues - ensure you have a healthy diet, daily exercise, enough sleep and water at regular intervals, and have foods in your dietary regime which are rich in vitamin D.

Now, let’s discuss some ways to achieve a work-life balance – to meet with demands of life, deadlines, and all.

Start Meditation

To experience mindfulness and inner peace, there is no better therapy than meditation. By meditating daily one can gain improve focus and concentration that can be helpful to get efficiency at work. Furthermore, it develops kindness, empathy, self-awareness and help in building a new perspective to deal with stressful situations in life.

Plan your day and set boundaries

Before starting your day creates a “to-do list” so that you can schedule and prioritize your work in advance. Also, it is important to set boundaries for yourself. Many freelancers work even at odd hours. And, that is the hardest part of work-life balance – learn to divide your time between your work and personal life. Once you decide on routines and boundaries that work for you, stick with that!

Work-life balance is not only achievable but also easier than you would believe. All you require is a discipline and good mindset. Having said that, always remember to think of a “work-life balance as a starting point rather than a destination”. Although perfect balance is difficult to achieve, especially for long time periods - one can always strive for it.

Happy reading!