Breaking Free from Hustle Culture: Prioritizing Health and Well-being Over Constant Productivity

A topic that comes up often, not only in my sessions with all of you but also with my friends, is how our society’s obsession with productivity and always being on the go is affecting our relationship with our bodies and loved ones. For the sake of this post, I'll stay in my wheelhouse and focus on how hustle culture is affecting our physical and mental health.

A quote that I come back to often is from Rupi Kaur’s book Home Body : “Productivity is not how much work I do in a day, but how well I balance what I need to stay healthy.” I think this quote should be our goal, but we all have a lot of self-reflection to do to get there.

We live in a culture that brags about how busy we are. We wear it as a badge of honour and feel like our self-worth increases with our narrow view of “productivity.” Last on our list too often tends to be our health.

Our health and mobility are directly tied to how we age. I have seen too many people put off their dreams for when they retire, only to reach that milestone with health issues that keep them from the adventures they’ve been dreaming of their whole lives. We are so focused on being productive that we neglect the very bodies that carry us through our days. By the time we decide to pay attention, it’s often too late to undo the damage.

Our bodies are not just tools for work; they are vessels for our experiences, our dreams, and our connections with loved ones. If we continue to ignore our health in favour of productivity, we risk losing the ability to live fully in our later years. We must shift our perspective and prioritize balance, ensuring that our pursuit of productivity does not come at the expense of our well-being.

I, too, neglected movement. Despite working in a community centre with a gym, I often worked through my lunch or came in early. That all changed for me when, at 28, I had two seizures in six hours. An epilepsy diagnosis made neglecting my health an option I no longer had. I went from being someone who thought exercise was a privilege for people who had the time and money for it, to someone who realized I no longer had the privilege of neglecting my health. My epilepsy diagnosis was a wake-up call, showing me that taking care of my body wasn't just important; it was essential.

Besides having a hard time fitting movement into our busy schedules, we are increasingly abandoning cooking and sharing homemade meals with our loved ones. Food nourishes our bodies and our souls. I always question how healthy we are as a society when we have to outsource nourishing ourselves so we can increase our societal productivity quota. In the process, we are losing family traditions and recipes. Food is tied to culture, something I strongly believe should be preserved. Some of my most treasured memories are cooking Irish Stew with my grandmother and big Saturday morning breakfasts with my mom. My mom was a single mother and didn’t have a ton of time or money, but she always made sure to take time to make a big breakfast. It was a non-negotiable for her; she always made it work. While I did not fully appreciate these moments at the time, when I became an adult and became too busy working unpaid overtime to cook for my family, those moments came back to me. It may have been one of the first moments I realized my life had fallen out of alignment.

All of this is why I do my best to make fitness more approachable, offering options like incorporating simple desk routines for mobility that you can do throughout the day. Short programs that are accessible to people short on time can make a big difference. I am also a huge proponent of organizing monthly meal prep days with friends and family to help you throughout the month. These small changes can help us integrate health and well-being into our daily lives without feeling overwhelmed.

Let's make a commitment to ourselves and our future: to cherish our health, nourish our bodies, and create a life that balances work with well-being. By doing so, we not only enhance our present but also safeguard our future, ensuring that we can enjoy the adventures and dreams we've worked so hard for.