Occupational Balance. What is it Anyway?
Examples of balance can be found everywhere, even in those places where you least expect them. — Dr Patrizia Collard
Occupational balance is one of the most important terms used in occupational therapy. Like the concepts of work-life balance or a balanced lifestyle, occupational balance is a concept which occupational therapists use to examine the impact of balance on health and well-being. However, understanding occupational balance isn’t relevant for only occupational therapists. It’s something that everyone should know about.
Why? Because it gives you a unique perspective on what balance might mean for you, and how it can influence your life. So today, we are going to be going over a few things.
- What occupational balance?
- What are the different ways you can look at occupational balance?
- How does occupational balance affect health and well-being?
- What are some common barriers to achieving occupational balance?
And at the end of the post, there’ll be a handy little workbook added to help you assess your occupational balance and find ways to improve it if you need to. Before we start though, understanding how the word ‘occupation’ is going to be used here would be helpful, so check out this post for more information.
So What is Occupational Balance?
Occupational balance is achieved when an individual engages in the right amount, and variety, of occupations to support their health and well-being. Although this may seem like a simple concept on the surface, it’s a little more complicated than it looks because occupational balance can be assessed from three distinct points of view.
- Occupational balance can be assessed based on the balance of your engagement in physical, mental, restful, and sleep occupations.
- Occupational balance can be evaluated based on your engagement in occupations that have different characteristics, like reading a book versus going to karaoke.
- Occupational balance can be assessed based on the amount of time you spend engaged in the various occupations you engage in daily.
So occupational balance can be viewed through these different lenses. However, it’s important to note that overall balance is achieved when the occupations in a person’s life are distributed in a way that fulfils these three criteria. The key here, though is that occupational balance is a subjective experience. This means that you decide what an occupationally balanced life looks like for you, and it’s why understanding the concept is a valuable tool. No one can determine what your life should look like but you.
It is also important to note that, like fitness, occupational balance is not a stationary state of being. It is a continuous process of evolution that changes as you grow. As your goals, priorities, abilities, capabilities, obligations, and aspirations change, so too will your definition of occupational balance. For example, what might constitute occupational balance for a child (mostly play, eating, and sleeping) may not be appropriate for an adult in their early 20’s who just started college. And the definition of occupational balance for a parent in their 30’s may be very different than the way a couple in their 60’s might define occupational balance.
How does occupational balance impact health and well-being?
A pilot study done at the University of South Australia examined the link between occupational balance and health and well-being. The results suggested that there is a direct link between them. A large percentage of the participants who reported that they were in excellent health, also said that they were satisfied with the distribution of occupations in their lives. And this isn’t surprising when you consider the definition of health given by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not just an absence of disease or infirmity.”
You need to ensure that you meet the needs of each of these areas in your life to be truly healthy. So what would likely happen if you routinely participate in a variety of activities that engage you physically, mentally, and socially, and you make adequate time to rest and relax? The odds that you’ll feel healthier are higher. So it is safe to speculate that an appropriate level of occupational balance leads to improved health and well-being. While on the other hand, occupational imbalance may lead to a decline in health and well-being.
What are the consequences of occupational imbalance?
Occupational imbalance can occur as a result of an individual not having enough occupations to engage in, or an individual having too many occupations to keep up with. In a situation where someone doesn’t have enough occupations to engage in, it usually leads to boredom. While in a case where they have too many, it usually leads to burnout.
The primary concern with both of these states of being is that they can lead to high levels of stress, which can negatively impact health and well-being in its own. However, one of the secondary concerns may be depression or other similar mental health concerns due to lack of options and frustration (with boredom), or lack of energy (in the case of burnout). Another possible problem here is engaging in activities that can negatively impact their health and well-being directly, like smoking, drinking, and overeating. Their behaviour could be the result of a compulsion to do something or simply be a way to cope with the stress they are going through.
Barriers to achieving occupational balance
Barriers to occupational balance prevent an individual from engaging in the occupations they want to or need to do, and there are a few common ones which will be discussed below.
- Physical Environment/Infrastructure: In this case, the issue may be that the environment you live in doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the occupations you would like to engage in. For example, the community centre may have a basketball court and a football field, but nothing else. If you enjoy either of those sports, there is no barrier to engagement. However, for someone who prefers swimming, the fact that there is no pool available could be a barrier to their engagement in their chosen occupation. Another example may be a building which does not have ramp access. The lack of a ramp could mean that people with impaired mobility are not able to access services housed within that building.
- Social Environment: In this case, it is the social environment which poses as a barrier to engagement. For example, a young lady may only have the time to go running in the early morning or late evening because of her job. But because of safety concerns, she chooses not to go at all. Another example may be that you live in an area that is predominantly populated with people who share vastly different cultural and religious views to yours. Because of this, you may not be comfortable engaging in occupations that you might find meaningful. Lastly, suppose you are in a country where they speak a language you aren’t familiar with. The communication gap could be a significant barrier to engagement in some occupations you might have otherwise chosen to partake in.
- Finances: This can be observed when the cost of engaging in your preferred occupations exceeds what you can afford. However, this may not always be associated with luxuries. For example, the price of psychological therapy can be so high in some places that people who would benefit from treatment aren’t able to access it. Finances can be one of the most significant barriers to occupational engagement, and thus occupational balance as well.
- Awareness/Perceived Value: In this case, if you aren’t aware of the value of an occupation, then it is unlikely that you will engage in that occupation. For example, if someone grew up in a family where the culture was to take care of other people first at all times, then they might struggle with seeing the value of self-care. This lack of associated value could translate to them not taking adequate time for themselves because they don’t think it’s essential.
- Time: Time management is an integral part of developing occupational balance because our time is limited as human beings. We need to be able to use our time to fulfil all of the obligations we have. This means poor time management, or duties (such as work/school/family) which require large amounts of time can contribute to occupational imbalance.
Now that we have talked about everything we listed at the beginning, it’s time to look at how to assess your occupational balance. As mentioned before, because occupational balance is subjective, you need to make your own assessments about what occupational balance looks like for you. So I’ve included a workbook that you can use to do this.
The first section reviews everything we’ve discussed here so far and the second section is a questionnaire. It has questions which allow you to rate a few different things, like how healthy you think you are, and your level of engagement in the various categories of occupations. There is also space to brainstorm some solutions if you find out that what you’re currently doing doesn’t match what you want to be doing. So feel free to download it and get to analysing!
Once you have finished the questionnaire, if you have identified any areas where changes need to be made, here are some tips to help you along the way.
- Set SMART Goals. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound goals.
- Take things one step at a time. Occupational balance is a process, not a destination.
- Reevaluate where you are on your journey every 2–3 months, so you stay on track.
All you need to do to start improving your occupational balance today is to decide that you are going to take little steps every day.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post and learning about occupational balance! Have a lovely week ahead, and bye for now!
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and reflects the views of the writer alone. Do not take anything written in this post as a substitute for advice/information from a trained professional familiar with the specifics of your situation.
