You may recognise this. You wake up with a sore throat, a heavy head and a body that really wants only one thing: to crawl back under the covers. And yet you get up. You tell yourself it will probably be fine. You’ll just see how it goes today. And before you know it, you’re sitting behind your laptop, in a meeting or even on your way to work. In organisational psychology there is a term for this behaviour: presenteeism. Whereas sickness absence means someone stays at home when they are ill, presenteeism means exactly the opposite: people do go to work even though they are actually ill, and naturally perform less than normally.
Why do we do that? Why do so many people keep working while their body clearly indicates it needs rest? The answer lies not in our body, but in our mind.
The invisible rules in our mind
Research shows that presenteeism occurs surprisingly often. Many employees only report sick when they really cannot continue any longer. Until that moment, they simply try to keep working. Not because they cannot feel their body, but because other forces are at play. And those forces come down to a kind of unwritten rule in your mind: “You don’t just call in sick.” Or: “You’re only ill when you literally cannot stand on your own feet anymore.”
A possible explanation for this behaviour comes from Self-Determination Theory, which I have described in earlier blogs as well. According to this theory, people have three fundamental psychological needs:
- Competence – the feeling that you are doing something well
- Relatedness – the feeling that you belong somewhere
- Autonomy – the feeling that you make your own choices
When we are ill, the first two come under pressure. If you stay at home, you may feel that you are not being productive. That touches our need for competence. And if colleagues have to take over the work, that can gnaw at our need for relatedness. The mind tries to solve such discomfort with a simple strategy: just keep going. We struggle with our body and feel utterly miserable, but we also struggle with thoughts like: “Others are already busy enough.” “I don’t want to let my colleagues down.” “They’ll think I’m exaggerating.”
When I look at these kinds of thoughts with my clients, they are usually old beliefs that were picked up somewhere along the way in life. Perhaps at home. Perhaps at school. Perhaps from a grandmother or another family member. In general, perseverance is encouraged in children as a great virtue. The mind then draws a simple conclusion from that: a good and loved person keeps going. And that is what we all want to be, isn’t it?
The paradox of perseverance
Our body is actually quite clear. Only… it usually starts softly. A tickle in your throat. Some tiredness. A mild headache. These are often the first signals that your immune system is at work. If we were to take rest then, the body would often recover quite quickly. But many people ignore those first signals, because their mind makes something else more important: functioning, continuing, being reliable. They only stop when the body starts speaking louder. When that mild tiredness becomes exhaustion. When the sore throat turns into a proper flu. And then they are ill for days or weeks. By constantly ignoring the signals of your body, you ultimately move further away from yourself.
A moment of self-reflection
For me this is also a pitfall. Last week I already felt that I actually needed rest. On Saturday a sore throat appeared as well, but that was it. And yes, I had to give lectures, both in my own course and in that of a colleague. Especially the latter made me go anyway, just pushing through for a bit longer. And so there I was, coughing and with a rasping voice, talking to 50 students about developmental processes. With many small sips of water. A Strepsil during the break. And still that feeling of not doing it well enough. It did work out in the end, although with effort. And because of that it may seem like something small. But these are exactly the moments when we learn whether we take our own signals seriously. And like many others, I still have a lesson to learn there.
The exercises of the Clarity process show you the subtle conditionings that sit underneath your behaviour: my value depends on what I do, not on how I take care of myself. As long as that plays a role unconsciously, taking rest also feels like failure. In my case, putting others before your own needs is something my parents modelled. Over the past years I have already practised a lot with this, which means I take rest much faster than I used to. That does not change the fact that I sometimes still place my mind above my body. Fortunately I recognise that earlier now, which means I do not let it go as far as I did in the past. And I quickly allowed myself rest again.
A small exercise
How could I have prevented this? Actually very simply: the next time you feel a bit flu-like or notice that your body actually wants rest, try this:
- Stop for a moment before getting up. And especially leave that phone on your bedside table.
- Before you decide to keep going, ask yourself: “What would my body choose right now, if my mind were quiet for a moment?”
- Try not to analyse the answer straight away. And do not judge it either. Just listen.
Perhaps you notice tiredness. Perhaps a heavy feeling in your body. Or a clear need to lie down a little longer, to sleep, or simply to take things more slowly. Many people have become so used to stepping over these signals that they hardly notice them anymore.
This exercise is not about immediately listening perfectly to your body. It is simply about learning to hear it again. Because the more often you pause to notice what your body indicates, the easier it becomes to actually act on it.
Because often our body already knows within one second. And after that, our mind can also come up with very good reasons why we really should call in sick for a day. In the end, that is what benefits both your employer and yourself the most.
Perhaps listening to your body is not weak, but actually a form of wisdom.
