New Year, new balance: managing stress in today's accounting profession.

• Author: Kenefick, Jack

the accounting profession. much more so than it ost. has been known for its high stress environment and culture, lye seen an increasing lack of healthy life balance result in an ever-increasing number of talented people feeling dissatisfied with their career desperate and even leaving the profession. Among the main culprits, common within all ranks of the profession: increased workloads and longer work Weeks, nonstop deadlines, an expectation of perfection. clients demanding lower lees, high billable hour targets, poor diet and lack of exercise or other outlet.

In addition to sapping energy, chronic high stress increases risk for mental and physical concerns--including lowered producticity, an increase in errors and misjudgments, poor commication with coworkers and clients, decreased job satisfaction. digestive disorders, chronic headaches. lack of sleep, hypertension and weight gain.

Failing to address this problem can negatively impact the health of professional as well as the firm's bulk fill 1111r.

Whill the idea of balancing work with play sounds great in theory, practicing it is not as simple. Through some small adjustments to daily habits, however, stress can be significantly in alleviated to dramatically improve the quality of the CPA's professional and personal life.

Practice regular exercise: This may seem obvious, but I've found the mentality of most CPAs is, "I will found the time to exercise in the future when I have mom to breathe and there's less stress." Unfortunately that. time never comes. People often think that, fir exercise to have any real benefit, it must be an intense workout itt a gym or something 'Hits is often too impractical to lit into a busy. hectic day. So we end up doing nothing for weeks and, in many cases. years.

The truth is, it doesn't take as much time and effort as you might think. Simply doing 15 minutes of intense exercise ill your living room, using no equipment jumping jacks. pushups, crunches. running in place), can be hugely beneficial.Rather than skipping through the commercials of a favorite show you've recorded, let the commercial run and do five, two-minute workouts during an hour-long show. It may seem silly at first, but, if done cnsistently, the long-term physical and emotional effects will be dramatic.

A quick workout done consistently is infinitely more effective than a perfect workout never done. After only a few weeks of exercise, most people experience a significant increase in energy...