Hating your job can cause Depression ( A comprehensive guide)
By
OptimistMinds
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Author bio
The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
In this guide, we will explain how hating your job can cause depression and other physical and mental ailments.
It’s an algorithm that resets day after day, week after week, year after year. Commute, work, repeat. Employment is a must for the majority of us to survive. And, given that we spend one-third of our lives at work, it’s worth trying to shake that impression that you’re not a true living, breathing person but an automaton.
This isn’t about what our intuition tells us, science backs it up. Study after study demonstrates that the effects of work unhappiness can affect your overall mental wellbeing, causing sleep, anxiety, and depression problems. It might not be practical, of course, to leave or get a new job overnight, but you can work towards being happy with the job you have. And there are some major perks to that.
Keynote Speaker & Corporate Trainer, Eric Karpinski, M.B.A., author of the forthcoming book: Put Happiness to Work, says: ‘Being happy at work makes us more involved, interested, innovative, and resilient, which can eventually lead to improved service, sales, and profitability.’ “When we feel positive and optimistic, with a negative mindset, we are more interested in what we are doing and more likely to see opportunities we may miss out on.”
Hating your job can cause Depression
There is nothing worse when it comes to your work than a job you despise, literally.
Getting a “poor quality” career, a job you despise is potentially worse for your mental health than having no job at all, according to a University of Manchester report. Unless you’ve been there, it can sound hard to believe: hostile co-workers, a passive-aggressive boss, or mind-numbing tasks. Not to mention that we also spend 40 or more hours a week in our jobs, and that’s a lot of time spent in a bad situation.
As Business News Daily reports, studies from the Human Relations journal showed that those who remained at firms because they felt obligated or could not find other work openings were more likely to experience fatigue, tension, and burnout. Furthermore, per one of the study’s researchers, “this feeling of indebtedness and a loss of autonomy is emotionally draining over time.” All these variables contribute directly to symptoms of mental well beings, such as anxiety and depression.
A job you despise can seem much direr with a pre-existing mental health problem.
“Of course, if you’re constantly miserable at work, that will affect your mental health,” says Sarah Schewitz, a psychotherapist based in Los Angeles. “If you already have a more negative outlook on life because you feel depressed, or because you are anxious, a more fearful outlook on life, it is fully amplified by being in a place that you despise daily.”
Hating your job can cause problems in the future
Later in life, the effect of hating your work will still haunt you. Ohio State University conducted a study that monitored people between the ages of 25-39 for work satisfaction and then assessed their health after they reached 40 years of age.
What the study found were those who were more vulnerable to mental health issues later on, including higher levels of depression, sleep problems, and constant worry, with low work satisfaction in their 20s and 30s. In their early careers, people who had poor work experiences often reported higher cases of diagnosed emotional disorders and scored lower on a general mental health examination.
“The higher levels of mental health issues may be a precursor to future physical problems for those with low job satisfaction,” said study author Hui Zheng. Increased anxiety and depression could lead to problems with cardiovascular or other health that will not surface until they are older.’
Hating your job can cause additional problems
Weight Gain
It will make you gain weight, first of all. There is a clear link between weight gain and work dissatisfaction, whether it is due to stress intake or lack of energy to exercise caused by the drain of your career.
Illness
When you dislike your work, your risk of illness is significantly greater. Not only does that indicate a weakened immune system that makes you vulnerable to normal, minor diseases, it also means that your chances of serious illness, including heart disease, are seriously elevated.
Stress
Every day, going to a job you despise puts you in a constant state of negativity, which creates dangerous stress levels. There are well reported negative effects of stress on humans: it harms the psychological well-being, contributes to weakness and irritability, and triggers the release of chemicals and hormones that trigger physical symptoms. To preserve your physical, emotional, and mental well-being, reducing stress is paramount.
Losing Sleep
You might have nightmares about your job. Maybe you’re having trouble falling asleep because the next day you dread going to work. That’s a serious issue if your work is disturbing your sleep. The advantages of having a good night’s sleep are enormous: enhanced brain activity and creativity, better physical wellbeing, and increased productivity during the day.
Your personal life would be hindered
Numerous studies have associated workplace unhappiness with home unhappiness. So many of us bring our jobs home with us, but when all you bring home is negativity, it may potentially bring down your loved ones, even though you don’t want to do that. Life in general is difficult enough. Many of us have personal and family commitments that never seem to let up. But you will be weighted down by the heavy burden of an unfulfilling task, and your friends and family are likely to be pessimistic, too.
Reduced motivation and excitement
Studies show that if you’re dissatisfied at work, you’re likely to do the absolute minimum to prevent being fired, but if you’re engaged in rewarding work, even if there’s no motivation involved, you’ll work harder than what your role needs. That can add up to a lot of experience that you’ve missed out on in the long run, only because you’re in a position that doesn’t challenge you. Employers who want to maximize employee efficiency should take notice. You don’t have to wait around, though, to know that your full potential is not being tapped by your boss.
This can destroy your confidence and self-worth
While younger generations do not define themselves the way older generations have through their work, staying at a job that is not right for you can still lead to reduced confidence and self-worth. Think about this. You spend too much of your waking hours in an uncomfortable position, doing things that you don’t want to do. How does the way you view yourself not take a toll on that? You probably do not often, or even at all, use your best talents, and your trust in your professional skills will decrease. Fortunately, however, you will help restore your confidence by getting back on track for a satisfying career. The faster you get it done, the better.
It holds you back from what you want to do
Even if your dream career has never been a practical prospect you guarantee that if you let yourself stay in the rut you are in, you’ll never see your dream realized. I can’t guarantee that your dream career is possible, but I can tell you that once you make the effort to make it happen, a better job, a rewarding job that you might even enjoy going to every day, is completely feasible.
How to not hate your job?
Always take breaks
You need to give time off after your body goes on high alert to protect you from unfair requests and bad bosses. Companionship, meditation, and exercise outside the workplace may help offset the effects of stress.
Reframe the negative thoughts you have
One of the cognitive behavioral therapy beliefs is that how you perceive will alter how you feel. To handle our unhelpful ruminations on how the presentation went or what our colleagues think about us, we can use mindfulness.
Leave
Pfeffer said that long hours, lack of control, uncertain schedules, and job instability are all factors that lead to a toxic atmosphere in the workplace that workers need to leave behind, not just deal with.
In this guide, we explained how hating your job can cause depression and other physical and mental ailments.
BetterHelp: A Better Alternative
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FAQs: Hating your job can cause Depression
Can job dissatisfaction cause depression?
If you are unhappy with your job, and it is chronic unhappiness, and you feel powerless to change your situation, depression can be fostered by these feelings of helplessness. Genetics, gender, disposition, and lack of social support are factors leading to depression.
What to do when you hate your job and you can’t quit?
Here is what you can do when you hate your job and can’t quit. Self-reflect first and take a hard look at yourself. Second, making a strategy can feel paralyzing when you’re in a position you hate. First, focus on your plan until you’ve got your plan together. You might feel overwhelmed.
If you find another one, don’t check out the work you have. Try to change the way you see your work.
How do you cope when your job makes you miserable?
In a career you hate, here are some ways to stick it out, at least before you can find another. Vent it out, remember it’s just temporary, make time for yourself in your workday, and find something enjoyable. Often, you should remember to keep smiling, reflect on your everyday life, try to do better, and not mess up.
How do you know if your job is making you unhappy?
Here are some signs of your life being ruined by your career. You can’t stop thinking about your career, you complain a lot about work, and it starts to feel draining rather than enjoyable at social activities with colleagues. Your feelings are overly pessimistic about work, and you filter out something positive about work.
Should I quit my job if it makes me unhappy?
There might not be a perfect career, and leaving your current job will not guarantee that you enjoy your next one. Often it does not make you any happier to leave a better-paid job for happiness at all. When you struggle to pay your bills and doubt your choices, it could trigger more tension.
Should I quit my job if it makes me suicidal?
If you have other work in your hand, leaving work will not help you. You would otherwise be financially vulnerable, which could lead to further depression. So, if you think you’re getting frustrated because of your current work, just leave until you find a new one. Try to set goals for yourself, too.
References
Overcome Depression and Find Joy in Life Again with BetterHelp
