The Insidious Effects of Hurrying

Summary. As the demands of work and personal life blur in an era of hyperconnectivity and hustle culture, hurry sickness — characterized by behaviors and emotions like impatience, chronic rushing, and a constant sense of time scarcity — is more insidious than ever, quietly sabotaging productivity, relationships, and health. If you find yourself with an urgent need to slow down, your health, your teams, the people you serve through your work, and your loved ones will thank you for taking steps to free yourself from hurry sickness. It’s not about how fast you go; it’s about how well you use the time you have.

In today’s fast-paced world, the pressure to do more, achieve more and be more in less time has become a pervasive part of modern life — and it’s wearing employees out. The authors of one study on professional service firms found that the majority of respondents described their jobs as “highly demanding, exhausting and chaotic,” and also took it for granted “that working long hours was necessary for their professional success.”

This relentless urgency can result in a phenomenon known as “hurry sickness,” a term first introduced in 1974 by cardiologists Meyer Friedman and R.H. Rosenman to describe the damaging effects of Type A behavior on cardiovascular health. Hurry sickness isn’t a diagnosable condition, but it encapsulates a set of behaviors and emotions — impatience, chronic rushing and a constant sense of time scarcity — that can wreak havoc on a person’s physical and mental well-being.

While the onus should be on employers to address many of the root causes of hurry sickness, there are steps you can take to mitigate it even in non-ideal circumstances.

The anxiety and chronic stress that come from a frantic, always-on lifestyle and the belief that you’re chronically short on time can result in high blood pressure, headaches and insomnia.

Hurry sickness can also leave you physically and mentally exhausted as you rush from task to task and don’t allow time for basic self-care such as regular, healthy meals, adequate sleep and taking breaks. Increasingly fatigued, your immune system can become suppressed, leading to greater susceptibility to infectious illness.

At work, hurry sickness can lead to poor decision-making as well as suboptimal outcomes when you don’t take time to think things through, or when rushing results in careless errors. Deep in the throes of hurry sickness, you experience a decreased ability to absorb, process and use new information, and your ability to innovate can suffer as well. Relationships can suffer because you’re easily irritated when others don’t keep up with your intense pace, or because you’re openly skeptical of their ability to get things done efficiently. When chronic workplace stress leads to exhaustion, negativity and underperformance, the final outcome of hurry sickness can be full-blown burnout.

IDENTIFYING HURRY SICKNESS

See if any of these signs and symptoms of hurry sickness are present in your own experience at work:

• Everything feels urgent.
• You’re always in a rush.
• You’re preoccupied with the passage of time.
• You always feel behind schedule.
• You’re low on patience and easily irritated.
• You deprioritize your own well-being in favor of efficiency and productivity.
• You’re uncomfortable with downtime and rarely take time to rest.
• You get pleasure from getting things done.

HOW TO OVERCOME HURRY SICKNESS

1. IMPLEMENT FORCING FUNCTIONS.

A forcing function is any mechanism or activity that by design compels a particular result or behavior. With hurry sickness, the goal is to decrease your sense of time scarcity and high urgency. Effective forcing functions might include blocking off buffer time on your calendar to deal with unexpected tasks; reserving time for deep, undistracted work with no particular end goal; and scheduling time to reflect on and reprioritize your to-do list so you’re not approaching everything with the same sense of urgency.

2. PAUSE BEFORE SAYING YES.

Not only do you need to examine your calendar to see if you actually can accept a request, you need to reflect to see if you should. Are you the only person who can fulfill it? Will it demand too much of your time, energy, or resources? Does it support your own goals and reflect your values? Once hurry sickness has become a lifestyle it will be difficult to slow down before saying yes, so you may need to enlist the help of an objective adviser whose feedback you trust. You can also use the next tactic.

3. WRITE DOWN THE CONSEQUENCES OF SAYING YES.

Pausing to write down what will happen if you say yes to an incoming request is a natural forcing function that compels you to slow down and prevents you from saying yes automatically. I prefer doing this exercise in longhand for the deeper thoughtfulness the extra time allows. Is the amount of stress associated with this task tolerable? Will the request take too much time away from activities outside of work or simply recharging? Seeing the consequences literally spelled out before you not only slows you down, it can be a great wake-up call.

4. WRITE DOWN THE BENEFITS OF SLOWING DOWN.

Make a list of all the positives you can enjoy if you slow down even a little. For many, it’s extra sleep, more time for relationships and a greater sense of relaxation and peace.

5. USE A TOOL TO HELP YOU PRIORITIZE.

Hurry sickness can mask what is truly high priority by leading you to believe that everything is, so bring some objectivity to your to-do list.

6. PRIORITIZE GRACE OVER ACCOMPLISHMENT.

One of my executive coaching clients is a self-described dopamine addict who relishes the feeling of her brain’s reward system getting a high-five as she checks things off her to-do list.

Fortunately, she’s finding relief from the self-induced stress by learning to extend grace to herself, a powerful form of self-compassion that allows us to direct our energy in a healthier, more productive way.

7. PRACTICE MINDFULNESS.

Mindfulness is nothing more than slowing down to give your full, nonjudgmental attention to the present moment — in many ways, the very antithesis of hurry sickness. Even practicing mindfulness for a few minutes at a time — such as through deep breathing, a simple body scan, bringing your full attention to a routine physical task such as brewing a cup of tea, or spending a few moments listening to calming music — can quickly lower stress and give your overtaxed mind a needed break.

8. SEEK SUPPORT.

If the root causes of your hurry sickness run deep or if you simply find it too difficult to manage your time urgency on your own, seeking help from a therapist, executive coach, employee resource group, or support group can be an essential part of a long-term cure. Accountability partners can also help you keep up with daily habits that bring a much-needed dose of slowness to your life.

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As the demands of work and personal life blur in an era of hyperconnectivity and hustle culture, hurry sickness is more insidious than ever, quietly sabotaging productivity, relationships, and health. If you find yourself with an urgent need to slow down, your health, your teams, the people you serve through your work, and your loved ones will thank you for taking steps to free yourself from hurry sickness. Remember, it’s not about how fast you go; it’s about how well you use the time you have.