Arianna Talks Burnout, Wellbeing And Sleep At Harvard

Arianna Talks Burnout, Wellbeing And Sleep At Harvard

When HuffPost President and Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington collapsed from exhaustion in 2007, breaking her cheekbone and and requiring stitches, she knew it was time to reevaluate the way she understood success, shifting the conversation beyond one of just money and power. In her continued effort to do so, she explored that new definition of success when she spoke at the Harvard School of Public Health on Wednesday.

Led by moderator Jay Winsten, the Frank Stanton director of the Center for Health Communication at the Harvard School of Public Health, Arianna addressed the panel on how we can reinvent our outlook on achievement in order to create more sustainable lives. She explained that one of the ways we can start to make these changes is to start prioritizing our own needs -- and when we do so, our work will be much better for it.

“Basically, we have become addicted to technology -- and that's one of the things we need to change, because we now take better care of our smartphones than we take care of ourselves,” Arianna said. “The truth is, when we are recharged and renewed, we are much more effective at whatever it is that we are working on or what we want to achieve.”

Arianna discussed her own burnout wakeup call, as well as her book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, which earned the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list for a nonfiction title.

“We discovered that there was nothing wrong with me medically [when I collapsed], but everything wrong with the way I was living my life,” she said. “My hope is that Thrive will be a bridge between knowing what we should be doing and actually doing it ... I want to make it clear that this [new definition of success] is not some some new-agey thing. This is a way we can completely thrive -- and it’s based on data.”

Check out the slideshow below for highlights from Arianna's Thrive event at the Harvard School of Public Health:

Thrive: Arianna Huffington At The Harvard School Of Public Health

For more on the Third Metric, click here.

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