According to research published in the Journal of Consumer Research, it’s no longer the luxury of having leisure time that defines wealth and success. It seems that being busy and overworked have become the new signs of status.

Silvia Bellezza, one of the researchers behind the study, says, “We examined how signaling busyness at work impacts perceptions of status in the eyes of others. We found that the more we believe that people have the opportunity for social affirmation based on hard work, the more we tend to think that people who skip leisure and work all the time are of higher standing."

Interestingly, some companies are cashing in on this evolving perception. If you start paying attention to marketing tactics, you may notice a trend emerging – companies touting their products as a way to reinforce how busy someone may be. 

Formerly, the mainstream marketing approach for these sorts of products would be a focus on how rare or high quality some ingredient or aspect of the product might be. But according to this study, that focus is “shifting... from the preciousness and scarcity of goods to the preciousness and scarcity of individuals.”

It’s true – people have gotten busy. Look at the work lives of your friends compared to the work lives your grandparents probably had (eg. one of our team members mentioned her grandfather telling her about heading home for an hour long lunch break and getting home at 4.30 on the dot every day). It feels like the workplace has become more competitive and it’s no wonder employees are bending over backwards to keep up.

We feel it’s important to acknowledge that at Activated Nutrients, we also speak to this group of busy professionals. We want to give them a way to consume raw wholefood nutrients that they may not be getting quite enough of through their daily meals. But the difference is that our main focus has always and will always be on the quality of our product.

Furthermore, we will always urge our friends, family and customers to take work-life balance seriously. As we discussed in a previous post, research shows that switching off from work may be crucial for health and wellbeing. We don’t want Activated Nutrients to replace the other aspects of self-care; but we believe our powerful wholefood powders can help you feel your best during work and play.

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References 
Science Daily