Take a break, avoid a breakdown

The best health services and technologies cannot restore your body and organs to their original status after a major health setback.

- DR P.S. VENKATESH RAO

All employees, employers, self-employed, temporarily retired, semi-retired, and retired persons, and those on sabbatical, must be mentally and physically active to stay healthy, even if wealthy.

"To be healthy is to be free," discourses are used among South African youth to encourage healthiness, especially in corporate wellness programmes. Being healthy allows freedom to live "normally" and choose what to do.

Public perception has been that wealth is health; now it is the adage: health is wealth.

From pre-electric era daylight work schedules to high-stress and burnout 7x24 work schedules, we are evolving to relaxed 4-day week schedules, and self-regulated work from anywhere.

We have had to adapt our lifestyle to the evolving nature of work and employment.

In 2019, Iceland approved a 4-day working week, eliminating inefficiencies in the work schedule, and found improved productivity.

Workers reported less stress and burnout, improved motivation, better health, stronger relationships, and more time for personal lives, hobbies, and families.

The societal fear of failure and obsession with stability and salaries is making way for experimentation with careers and lifestyle for health, financial freedom, happiness, and social impact.

EVOLVING WORK, EMPLOYMENT AND LIFESTYLE: In the agrarian economies before the Industrial Revolution, most people worked as farmers growing crops and raising livestock, and as artisans who manually produced goods like clothing, shoes, vessels, tools, jewellery, and other necessities.

They had better control over their lifestyle.

The industrialized societies created blue-collar manufacturing, construction, maintenance, and transportation jobs, and white-collar professional, managerial, and administrative jobs.