Grind Culture and Mental Health

The workplace has many effects on mental health, both positive and negative. However, increasingly, people have taken to prioritizing working almost all the time, rather than solely during their established work hours.

 Grind culture refers to the concept of working whenever possible, focusing on productivity (Alexander, 2025); while it can be seen as a positive, where the individual illustrates a strong work ethic, it can quickly veer into pushing oneself too far. As another blog entry talks about, work in general takes a toll on mental health, even with the benefits provided, and that doesn’t even get into what happens when you overwork yourself.
It’s already difficult to prioritize health and self-care under a normal workload, as well as to manage a work-life balance. It’s almost impossible with grind culture, which emphasizes finding a way to be productive as often as possible. An important part of why grind culture is so rampant is due to social media and influencers, several of which will glamorize grind culture or offer so-called shortcuts they have, to live the lives they show on social media. Instagram alone has “3 billion monthly active users and over 500 million daily active users “ (Kumar, 2026), and is one of the most prolific sites for influencers. It’s almost impossible to escape people encouraging you to work relentlessly in the modern age.

Working like that leaves very little time available just for relaxation, despite that it’s better for everyone if the employees have workplace benefits and a life outside of work. It’s even been shown that having a strong work-life balance improves employee productivity (Susanto et al., 2022), which means that it even benefits the employers to promote work-life balance.

Reasons Why Some Individuals Believe in it
Grind culture is predominantly negative, and working as often as its proponents encourage is unsustainable as it prevents workers from recovering overnight (Ten Brummelhuis et al., 2024; Riley & Rosen, 2025). Still, its supporters believe that there are some benefits to engaging in it, such as believing it helps them improve and grow skills, as well as thinking that it helps them grow in their careers (Lagemann, n.d.). It’s also associated with higher income (Harper, 2024), something that may be viewed as a worthwhile perk in the current economic climate and the increasingly high cost of living (O’Leary, 2025). However, even though it may help to improve skills and career growth, the effect on productivity is far less positive.

Employers also often support the concept of grind culture because they believe that it results in higher productivity, even at the expense of employees’ health. Grind culture predominantly benefits corporations, but even they are negatively impacted by it. Research shows that the believed boost to productivity doesn’t actually exist.

The Negatives
One of the strongest pieces of evidence against grind culture is that a Stanford study found that working over 50 hours a week makes productivity decline harshly (Hall, 2024; HR Team, 2021; Pencavel, 2014). This study also found that the difference between 55 hours and more is almost negligible. In terms of work output, you would do basically the same amount of work at say, 65 hours as you do at 55 hours.

It’s also important to keep in mind that grind culture and overworking is heavily linked to burnout. “Compared with a work week of 40 hours, the odds ratio of work-related burnout doubled when hours exceeded 60, tripled when hours exceeded 74, and quadrupled when hours exceeded 84” (Lin et al., 2021). Burnout is heavily associated with impaired mental health, as well as physical health (Channawar, 2023; Richardson, 2025; Scott, 2025). Part of what contributes to this burnout is the pressure of grind culture to not only overwork oneself, but to perform at high levels the entire time (Levine, 2026).

It’s also worth noting that part of the physical toll overworking has is on sleep, which people use to recover from the day. One survey found that 37% of Americans use their paid time off (PTO) to catch up on sleep, rather than using it for vacations (Osmun, 2026). This same survey also found that “38% of Americans would be interested in a vacation designed to improve their sleep.” They overwork so much that they need additional time just to get a healthy amount of rest.

Further, grind culture can cause individuals to feel that “self-worth aligns directly with the amount of work an individual accomplishes” (Alexander, 2025). Grind culture prioritizes work output at the expense of physical and mental health, and in the process, it tells individuals that their worth lies in their economic value.

Grind culture is also linked to perfectionism and impostor syndrome, which is when people doubt their own abilities and feel like a fraud, even with direct evidence showing that they aren’t (Levine, 2026). The need to achieve while overworking is an extremely important part of why grind culture is related to burnout, because it causes individuals to push themselves even harder and think that if they just try more, they can do even better.

How To Counter the Negatives
One way to help with the effects of grind culture is, of course, the workplace providing benefits to its employers such as paid time off (PTO), or by offering mental health support. A workplace that prioritizes mental health and offers support is also helpful (Franco, 2026; Kelloway et al., 2023; Novotney, 2023; Ward et al., 2023).

Focusing on work-life balance is also helpful, and would help to counter the message that grind culture sends that one’s only value is how good they are at work. The importance of work-life balance cannot be understated, and KU School of Business (2025) offers some examples on how the workplace has been shown to help establish a work-life balance.

It can also help for employees to prioritize self-care through activities such as taking breaks at work and setting boundaries, engaging in activities outside of work, practicing mindfulness, and focusing on your physical needs such as getting an adequate amount of rest (Alexander, 2025). The company can help by not allowing its workers to work through their breaks and not promoting that attitude, as well as by refraining from contacting them outside of work unless an emergency requires them. It can also help if you feel that your work is meaningful (Lea & MacGillivray, 2026).

References
Alexander, D. (2025, September 2). What is grind culture? The dangerous obsession with hustle and its effects on well-being. Sue Platt. https://sue-platt.com/what-is-grind-culture/

Ten Brummelhuis, L.L., Calderwood, C., Rosen, C.C., & Gabriel, A.S. (2024). Peaking today, taking it easy tomorrow: Daily performance dynamics of working long hours. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 46(4), 530-547.https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2847

Channawar, S. (2023). A study on the cause and effect of burnout. History Research Journal, 29(1), 75-79.

Franco, D.D. (2026, January 16). The importance of mental health in the workplace. Meditopia. Retrieved May 16, 2026, from https://meditopia.com/en/forwork/articles/importance-of-mental-health-in-the-workplace

Hall, J. (2024, January 2). Working long hours leads to burnout: Time to ditch the hustle culture. Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/growth-strategies/working-long-hours-leads-to-burnout-time-to-ditch-the/467769 

Harper, M. (2024, March 9). Hustle culture: How the rise-and-grind mentality does more harm than good. Jobs & Hire. https://www.jobsnhire.com/articles/58332/20240309/hustle-culture-rise-grind-mentality-more-harm-good.htm 

Kelloway, .K., Dimoff, J.K., & Gilbert, S. (2023). Mental Health in the Workplace. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10, 363-387. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-120920-050527

Kumar, N. (2026, March 7). How many people use instagram in 2026 [active users stats]. DemandSage. https://www.demandsage.com/instagram-statistics/

Lagemann, C. (n.d.). What is grind culture? Meaning, signs & what hr can do about it. Avidon Health. https://avidonhealth.com/hr-people-operations/the-grind-culture-a-double-edged-sword-in-the-workplace/

Lea, S., & MacGillivray, K. (2026, February 17). Beyond the grind: The rise of hustle culture and its negative effects. WellIntel. https://wellintel.ca/blog/the-grind-and-negative-effects-of-hustle-culture/

Levine, M. (2026, January 8). The trauma of grind culture: Unraveling the hidden impact. IFS EMDR Therapy Group. Retrieved May 15, 2026, from https://ifsemdrtherapy.com/blog/nbspthe-trauma-of-grind-culture-unraveling-the-hidden-impact

Lin, R-T., Lin, Y-T., Hsia, Y-F., & Kuo, C-C. (2021). Long working hours and burnout in health care workers: Non-linear dose-response relationship and the effect mediated by sleeping hours—A cross-sectional study. Journal of Occupational Health, 63(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/1348-9585.12228

Novotney, A. (2023, April 21). Why mental health needs to be a top priority in the workplace. American Psychological Association. Retrieved May 16, 2026, from https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2022/surgeon-general-workplace-well-being

O’Leary, A. (2025, August 30). Why are prices rising? Understanding America's inflation problem. GovFacts. Retrieved May 16, 2026, from https://govfacts.org/money/broader-economy/economic-indicators/why-are-prices-rising-understanding-americas-inflation-problem/

Osmun, R. (2026, May 4). Nearly 1 in 2 Americans would pay more for a vacation that helps them sleep. Amerisleep. Retrieved May 16, 2026, from https://amerisleep.com/blog/top-cities-for-sleep-vacation/
Pencavel, J. (2014). The productivity of working hours. The Economic Journal, 125(589), 2052-2076. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12166

Richardson, J. (2025, September 1). How burnout affects physical health: From headaches to heart disease. Headpsy. https://www.headpsy.com/article/how-burnout-affects-physical-health-from-headaches-to-heart-disease

Riley, A., & Rosen, C. (2025, May 13). Work to live, or live to work? The effects of working long hours. University of Arkansas. https://walton.uark.edu/insights/posts/work-to-live-or-live-to-work-the-effects-of-working-long-hours.php

Scott, E. (2025, October 29). How to recognize burnout symptoms. Verywell Mind. Retrieved May 16, 2025, from https://www.verywellmind.com/stress-and-burnout-symptoms-and-causes-3144516

Susanto, P., Hoque, M.E., Jannat, T., Emely, B., Zona, M.A., & Islam, M.A. (2022). Work-life balance, job satisfaction, and job performance of SMEs employees: The moderating role of family-supportive supervisor behaviors. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.906876

The Effects of Overworking: Here’s Why Productivity Doesn’t Get a Boost. (2021, November 23). The HR Team. https://www.thehrteam.com/blog/the-effects-of-overworking-heres-why-productivity-doesnt-get-a-boost/

The importance of work-life balance: A comprehensive guide. (2025, June 03). KU School of Business. Retrieved May 15, 2026, from https://onlinemba.ku.edu/experience-ku/mba-blog/promoting-work-life-balance

​Ward, E.J., Fragala, M.S., Birse, C.E., Hawrilenko, M., Smolka, C., Ambwani, G., Brown, M., Krystal, J.H., Corlett, P.R., & Chekroud, A. (2023). Assessing the impact of a comprehensive mental health program on frontline health service workers. PLoS One, 18(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294414