I have a very bad habit (which I am sure that a lot of folks share) of working beyond my body's limits. Far too often, I would be so immersed in my job or in the task at hand that I would simply forget to eat or sleep. This, of course, would mean that I would get sick - really, really sick, perhaps with fever, acid reflux, and, if I'm especially neglectful, a bad combination of both. My body would barely have the energy to function properly, much less fight whatever illness decides that it would be fun to take over. I would barely be able to think or concentrate, my ability to work would decline, I would become frustrated, and I would end up forcing myself to work harder - the cycle of stress would thus be perpetuated.



My worst example, though, would have to have been that time back in college where our entire class was given a transcription project, and I was made head editor. I was thrilled at the honor of getting to do the final spell and grammar checks on the projects, but soon, the thrill was replaced by copious amounts of stress, because what I had not expected was the time constraints and the other workloads that were pushed on us by our other professors. Inevitably, we ended up having to rush for the deadline, and I was left with the task of pestering the many different sub-editors to submit their soft copies a week before the deadline. And even when we were allowed an extension, I nevertheless only got the soft copies that I was supposed to edit two days before the deadline, which prompted me into a panicked editing frenzy (thank got for the rest of the head editing team, who helped me through it). I ended up not sleeping and not eating properly for two days straight, and suffering through the mother of all flus afterwards.

The point I'm trying to put across here is that I recognize this bad habit of mine and I have, for the past few years, decided that enough is enough - and that I should try and take better care of myself. Which is why I'm not ashamed to admit that I am a supporter of the idea of siesta.

For those of you who don't know, siesta is the Latin tradition of taking a few hours worth of break some time in the middle of the day. While some people think of this as "laziness", I would like to point out that it is, in fact, practical especially for the types of people who have to get up extremely early to get to work and nevertheless still have work to do up until the evening. Of course, you may argue that it is not at all practical for anyone to have a bit of a nap in the middle of the day when there are projects left and right to be dealt with. But I would also like to point out that working until you're half-dead isn't going to make you any more efficient at your job either. Siesta gives you the opportunity to unwind and re-energize so that there is less danger of you exhausting your body to the point of collapse or illness.

And it's not as if you can't find a compromise for this at all. If you can't take a nap, then at least take a slightly longer lunch break on a particularly stressful day, take half day off, or, if you can't have any of those, leave all your work at the office and use your time at home to relax and get some sleep. I would also suggest that you keep your weekends free and make sure that they are for you and you alone - having homework or other some such thing to worry about all the time will only make you waste more energy. It would also help if you make a daily personal quota for yourself, and schedule at least ten minutes of meditation.

All I'm saying is that working too hard and all the time is one of the leading reasons why people are so unhealthy these days. Whatever happened to a full night's rest? Just because you were told that a client is coming doesn't mean that you have to stress out and deal with it NOW. Some time off is exactly what we need, and I don't care if you think that the hard working ant will have more in storage in the winter, because the way things look now, winter isn't coming and there's no-one enjoying all the food stored in the pantry anyway. We deserve to take some time to ourselves. We need to slow down, or we're going to simply destroy ourselves.