A very interesting study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine¹ reports that people who work an average of 11 or more hours per day (versus 7 to 8) increase their risk of heart attack or dying from heart disease by 67%! People working between 10 to 11 hours per week have a 45% higher risk. It is important to note that the subjects in this study at baseline were “low risk” for cardiovascular disease or cardiovascular death. While most Americans are grateful for work in these difficult economic times, long hours may be undermining worker diligence.

While this study could not show a cause-effect relationship between long working hours and heart attacks, researchers point out that the apparent link could be due to a number of factors such as stress, lack of exercise, and eating high-calorie takeout foods rather than healthy, home-prepared foods. The American Institute of Stress list stress as “America’s #1 Health Problem”² and cites the following statistics on work stress:

• 40% of workers reported their job was "very" or "extremely" stressful;
• 25% view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives;
• three-fourths of employees believe that workers have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago;
• 29% of workers felt "quite a bit" or "extremely" stressed at work;
• 26% of workers said they were "often or very often burned out or stressed by their work"; and
• job stress is more strongly associated with health complaints than financial or family problems.

The 2000 Integra Survey reported that:

• 19% or almost one in five respondents had quit a previous position because of job stress and nearly one in four have been driven to tears because of workplace stress;
• 62% routinely find that they end the day with work-related neck pain, 44% reported stressed-out eyes, 38% complained of hurting hands, and 34% reported difficulty in sleeping because they were too stressed-out;
• 12% had called in sick because of job stress; and
• over half said they often spend 12-hour days on work related duties and an equal number frequently skip lunch because of the stress of job demands.

Stress management research, in general, points to the fact that the type of work someone does and how much someone enjoys his/her job is very important in evaluating how stressful his/her job is. Some people who have very demanding jobs such as workers in hospital emergency rooms may thrive in that environment and might actually be bored in slower paced, less intense environments; to them that is stressful. Also, a key theme in perceived stress at the workplace is based on how much control the worker has.

The Cooper Institute has published many studies that link heart disease to low levels of cardiovascular fitness. Furthermore, it is well established that poor nutrition is linked to many chronic diseases. If your job is stressing you out, take what steps you can to reduce your stress and be sure to exercise and eat right!

¹Kivimaki, M., Batty, D., & Hamer, M. (2011). Using additional information on working hours to predict coronary heart disease: a cohort study. Annals of Internal Medicine, 154, 457-463.
² The American Institute of Health: www.stress.org