How Busy Season Negatively Impacts Your Health
Busy season can be a great opportunity for new accounting professionals to learn a lot with an increased workload. To some recruiters, working a busy season is the equivalent of working twice that amount of time in an industry role, so it's clearly very valuable! However, the extra work and responsibility does come with some potential downsides that can impact your health. If you can manage yourself well, these downsides can be minimized or even negated entirely. On the other hand, if you are not careful these downsides could have a lasting impact. Today, we are going to discuss some of the ways how busy season can negatively impact your health and what you can do about it.
Health Impact #1 - Diet
Having to work extended hours and being pressured to be productive is not conducive to maintaining a healthy diet. It is incredibly easy for accountants to overeat, eat the wrong things, or combination of the two. Here are some of the common examples of how your diet can be impacted by working busy season hours:
If you work in an office, it's likely that you will get fed with a few catered lunches and pizza parties as well. I've also heard of some big four auditors being able to expense dinner to their client every single night when they are at the client site. While these extra meals can be convenient, they aren't always the healthiest in terms of calories and macronutrients.
Working a lot of hours also means that you have less time to prepare your own meals. This can lead to more convenient and less healthy meal choices.
Trying to stay awake to work these extra hours? Some accountants turn to the use and abuse of stimulants to stay awake and focused throughout the longer days. I've seen soda, energy drinks, and ADHD medicine abused by various accounting professionals all the way up to the partner level.
Food can work as fuel to get you through these longer working days and at times, it can also be a therapeutic escape from the work itself. Be sure to take advantage of meals and meal reimbursements where it makes sense to do so, but be on the lookout for any new patterns in your diet. Because your focus will be spread so thin during these extended working hours, it is critical that you stay aware of what you are putting into your body and how often you're doing it.
Health Impact #2 - Exercise & Activity
This one comes down to basic math and psychology. If you are working more hours than you usually do, you will have less time to yourself during busy season. Additionally, extended working hours can be stressful so it's important to destress as often as possible. The combination of these two factors can lead to some unhealthy habits, such as the following:
Being sedentary for long periods of time. Humans are not built to sit in front of a spreadsheet for 12 hours straight.
Skipping out on the gym or exercise for other things. When faced with busy season hours, people need to cut out some activities to make time for those extra working hours. Unfortunately, this can lead to the gradual elimination of regular exercise in one's schedule.
Not getting enough sleep. Accountants tend to not sleep as much during busy season because they are either working late or staying up later to recapture the personal time that they have lost to their extra working hours. in either circumstance, the lack of sleep can have an impact on physical and mental health.
With extended working hours and therefore less personal time to work with, it's incredibly important to keep track of how you are spending whatever is left of your personal time. Be sure to keep sleep and exercise near the top of the list!
Health Impact #3 - Normalization of Conditions
They say it takes 3 weeks to create a habit. With busy season being at least 12 weeks for most people, it is incredibly easy to create and fall into bad habits such as the ones listed above related to diet and exercise. While these bad habits are very damaging by themselves, I think the biggest impact on one's health can come from their working environment. Over the course of at least 12 weeks, public accountants are surrounded by other people that may pressure them to put in the time and effort to get the job done while potentially sacrificing their health. Because busy season is so long, it's very easy to normalize some very unhealthy habits and carry them with you after busy season is over. Here are a few examples:
It is not normal to sit in a chair for 12 hours a day staring at a spreadsheet.
It is not normal to drink five energy drinks in one day
It is not normal to only work and sleep with no time for personal activities
It is not normal to not see any of your friends outside of work for 3 months straight
It is not normal to work from home and not step outside for 3 days straight.
It is not normal to brag about how many hours you billed last week.
It is not normal to be unable to take a day off for four straight months.
While this normalization has a less direct impact on your health, I believe it is the most dangerous because it enables the more direct impacts to occur much more consistently and harshly. If you find yourself normalizing toxic behavior because of busy season, you need to take a step back and reevaluate your priorities.
What Can You Do About It?
I have highlighted a lot of potentially negative effects of busy season above, but it doesn't have to be that bad. The first step to avoiding these negative impacts on your health is to understand what they are and how they come about. Since you've already read this far, congratulations! You now have a fundamental understanding of the potential health impacts of working busy season hours. Here's how you can apply this knowledge next busy season:
Pay attention to your diet! Start tracking your meals to see if you are eating more or more frequently to match the extra working hours.
Schedule your exercise! Having appointments on your calendar for daily walks or regular trips to the gym can make a huge difference in whether or not you get in your exercise.
Talk to your non-accounting friends! Perspective is incredibly important, especially when it comes to busy season. Keeping in contact with friends outside of the profession will ensure that you don't get completely sucked in to busy season life.
Will busy season kill you? Probably not. But it does have the potential to shape your health and your habits if you aren't careful. With busy season fast approaching, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your health goals and incorporate them into your busy season plans. Good luck!