High Tech, High Touch

hightechtouchWelcome to the craziness of Silicon Valley. We live in a place where everyone knows what it’s like to have a career that’s “more than a job, less than a life”. We are surrounded by high tech workers, and most of us work, or have worked, in high tech at some time in the last 20 years. It’s hustle, bustle, high pressure work. It’s rewarding, yes, but it can take its toll on our physical well-being.

All this high tech work, and the high tech devices we use every day, can cause physical stress on wrists, necks, shoulders, and eyeballs.  It’s also likely shortening attention spans and potentially weakening personal relationships. The heavy stress that comes with a high-reward job can also cause us to lose focus.

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More than a job, less than a life

stressballSilicon Valley offers endless opportunity for bright, motivated people.  Whether it’s building the next best thing from an idea written on a napkin, to landing a dream job at a tech giant, the benefits are incredible. Every day you’re immersed in excitement fueled by caffeine and good old nose-to-the grindstone brainwork. It’s 10 hours a day of nonstop adrenalin. The work is exciting, challenging, and occasionally frustrating.

It also slowly turns you into one angry ball of stress.

All that multitasking, deadline-sweating, and de-prioritization of family and leisure time can take a toll.  In your high-tech world you’re giving your all for the job and giving up a lot in return. You’re trading hard work for your company for hard work on your health and relationships. Welcome to “more than a job, less than a life.”

You can just deal with it, of course, or you can take control of this one part of your life and do something positive to help reduce the stress associated with your work.

Three Steps to the Good News

Tech companies know that the work environments they’re maintaining are high-stress.  They really do care about helping you be successful and helping you manage stress.  They offer opportunities to control diet with health-concious corporate café choices, gyms for exercise and volunteer opportunities in community service to help you get out of your cube.  But lots of employees are so stressed, they forget to seek out these alternatives.  They see themselves as so busy, they don’t see how it’s possible to relax.

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