But how do you know if you’re too busy? (Hint: The number of things on your to-do list isn’t an indicator.)

Perhaps this will resonate:  I’ll be able to sleep better if I can get just one more hour of work done. Or, I was busy all day, but there’s still more to do. There’s always more to do.

If the little voice inside your head sounds like this, you may be a workaholic. Whether you’re a stay-at-home, work-at-home or work-outside-the-home mom, we’re all candidates for what stress-management expert Debbie Mandel labels an addiction to stress.

“Like any addiction, people who suffer from workaholism need an adrenaline high, so they keep staying busy to avoid crashing,” says Mandel, author of Addicted to Stress: A Woman’s 7 Step Program to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life (Jossey-Bass, 2008).

Wendy Pike, a small-business owner and mother of two, knows this feeling. After losing her job while on maternity leave—it was the late 1980s, before the Family Medical Leave Act—she was hired at her husband’s office supplies company part-time. But that quickly escalated to getting a master’s degree, taking over the human resources and finance departments, eventually becoming part-owner and acquiring 12 companies. During those years her kids spent their sick days on the company couch, their free days washing shelves in the warehouse and developing life-long friendships with some of the employees.