UAE: 70% residents find it hard to separate work and personal life, says report

UAE: 70% residents find it hard to separate work and personal life, says report

Manage time, learn to prioritise, disconnect: Experts share tips to boost work-life balance

Published: Tue 17 Jan 2023, 7:32 PM Last updated: Tue 17 Jan 2023, 7:43 PM

Tom (not his real name) is suffering from stress due to a lack of work-life balance. He seeks help and realises that time management is an important tool. His therapist encourages him to map out his day on an excel sheet and to slot in “switch-off” time. Tom’s stress levels are now noticeably reduced.

Tom is a client of Aditi Nath, Mental Health Practitioner & Cognitive Training Director at The Brain Workshop, one of the mental health specialists Khaleej Times spoke to following the release of duke+mir’s 2023 Life and Technology Report on Tuesday.

The report showed that since 2020, 70% of people in the UAE have found it harder to separate work and personal life and that remote technologies have distorted work-life balance.

The main problem with work-life balance, according to Aditi, is that many people don’t really understand what it means. Juggling work, a busy social life and extracurricular activities are not work-life balance. “If you never switch off from anything that looks like work, then you don’t have a work-life balance. You need complete