Workaholics outline

Interestingly, workaholism comes with benefits and tradeoffs. Workaholism may at first induce pleasure, then later limit one’s social life, induce subjective emotional pain and feelings of “burnout”— and may even lead to dangerous actions like driving recklessly while on the phone or while being sleep deprived, researchers say.

The team defines workaholism as a “clinical condition that is characterized by both externalizing (i.e., addiction) and internalizing (i.e., obsessive-compulsive) symptoms and by low levels of work engagement.” The researchers split engaged and disengaged workaholics.

Scientists estimate 10 percent of the United States adult population are workaholics. Researchers have seen similar numbers in Japan, Australia, South Africa, and South Korea. Workaholics have the “ compulsion to work incessantly.”

How to stop the cycle — To get a sense of your propensity for workaholism, you can use the Bergen Work Addiction Scale. It uses seven basic criteria to identify work addiction, where all items are scored on the following scale: (1) Never, (2) Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4) Often, and (5) Always: You think of how you can free up more time to work.