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Three college researchers recently wrote a paper about this subject.

Silvia Bellezza, marketing professor at Columbia Business School, Georgetown’s Neeru Paharia, and Harvard’s Anat Keinan found that if someone seemed busy, they were viewed as more successful and held in higher esteem than those who were perceived as less busy. For perfectionists, busyness is their crack, so to speak. If you are busy enough with the perception of working hard, you set yourself up for disappointment at any minor setback that keeps you from being busy. In one experiment, the researchers used social media posts to gauge whether participants thought the posters were of high or low status. Posts that claimed “busyness” over “leisure” were perceived as higher on the status scale.

Dr. Susan Koven practices internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. In a 2013 Boston Globe column, she wrote:

In the past few years, I’ve observed an epidemic of sorts: patient after patient suffering from the same condition. The symptoms of this condition include fatigue, irritability, insomnia, anxiety, headaches, heartburn, bowel disturbances, back pain, and weight gain. There are no blood tests or X-rays diagnostic of this condition, and yet it’s easy to recognize. The condition is excessive busyness.7

It’s a sickness now. And for perfectionists, the fear of making a mistake can either paralyze you or send you into a busy frenzy to avoid what you really need to do: stay in the moment. You know what you need to do to cure a case of the busy bees. Relish every moment, taking your time to stop and smell the roses. But what if you do have a lot to do?

There are two kinds of busyness: the kind you can control and the kind you can’t control. The busyness that is out of your control could be your job or your family. The busyness you can control often includes stress that is self-created. The over-the-top kid’s birthday party, the too-many volunteer committees you signed up for at work, or the full-kitchen remodel in the middle of having another child.

So what can you do about your busy disease? Is it a terminal? Will you have “She died because she wouldn’t take a break” written on your tombstone? The good news is, no. The first step is to remember not to brag about your busyness. Try to streamline responsibilities if you can. Let go of some of the control and ask for help. Most of all, don’t be afraid to make mistakes along the way. Being too busy, aside from all those physical symptoms, can wreak havoc on relationships, both personal and professional. You don’t want to be in divorce court telling the judge that you ignored your partner, family, and friends to stay busy, when you had the choice to stop and smell the roses.