Between the overflowing mailbox and the stress of responding to everyone, some employees end up... forgetting to breathe. What if your emails were suffocating you?
An insidious phenomenon that many are unaware of: email apnea, the habit of holding your breath while sorting through emails, could be harming your mental and physical health.
144 emails per week: a marathon without oxygen
Are your emails wearing you out? With an average of 144 emails per week for employees, and even 331 for executives, sorting through your inbox has become a real marathon. But be careful, running without breathing is rarely a good idea. Victoria McLean, founder of career consultancy City CV, tells Stylist magazine: "Email apnea generates stress and fatigue [...]. It's like running a marathon and forgetting to breathe."
Email apnea, the unconscious reflex of holding your breath while opening your emails, is a physiological response to stress. Our breathing synchronizes with our emotions: anxiety blocks our breath, while joy widens it. Receiving a flood of emails can cause this feeling of tension that literally takes your breath away.
Fatigue that affects your creativity and decisions
Email apnea won’t just make you yawn at 2 p.m. In the long run, it can reduce your creativity and decision-making abilities. “Email apnea reduces creativity and our decision-making abilities. When we’re constantly stressed, it’s harder to think clearly and brainstorm new ideas to solve the problems we’re facing, which can ultimately hurt the quality of our work and our ability to innovate within the organization,” McLean says. The result? A decline in the quality of your work and a difficulty in innovating.
But fortunately, there are remedies. The 4-7-8 method, which involves inhaling for 4 seconds, holding your breath for 7 seconds, and exhaling for 8 seconds, is a great way to regain control of your breathing at the office. Taking regular breaks and moving around also helps to limit this state of apnea.
Rethinking your relationship with emails: an essential choice
Beyond breathing, it is urgent to think about how you manage emails. Not all emails require an instant response. You can also avoid flooding your colleagues by limiting unnecessary copies. And for managers? Why not establish email-free days to allow everyone to concentrate without interruption? Hyperconnectivity is everyone's business!
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