Testing It Up

If you are one of those yuppies whose normal work hours takes up half a day or thereabouts – literally – then you may end up having a little trouble with your heart.

A study published on Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine determined that people who spent 11 hours or more working were more at risk for developing heart trouble, when compared against people who only worked the usual 7 to 8 hours per day. The lead author of the study is Mika Kivimaki, a professor of social epidemiology at University College London.

The study involved an examination of 7,095 adults between the ages of 39 and 62, conducted in the early 1990s. Information gathered by the researchers was used to score the risk of participants for heart disease; an estimated 10 percent of these adults admitted to working long hours.

The researchers determined that participants whose workdays lasted for 11 hours or more were 66 percent more likely to suffer a heart attack. According to a report by Reuters, however, that it was unclear if the long work hours were the direct cause of the increased risk or if it only served as a “marker” for other factors that may influence heart health, such as unhealthy eating habits and lack of exercise.

Reuters Health shared the following statement from Kivimaki, which was shared by the lead author through an e-mail: “Current evidence on (heart disease) prevention emphasises the importance of focusing on the total risk, rather than single risk factors… People who work long hours should be particularly careful in following healthy diets, exercising sufficiently and keeping their blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and blood (sugar) within healthy limits.”

A report by the Associated Press shared the results of a study led by Dr. Michelle Albert, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Based on the study, women who work in high-stress job environments are more likely to suffer from a heart attack or stroke, compared to women who face less stress at work.

Researchers studied data from 17,415 participants in the Women’s Health Study, a trial that looked into heart disease and cancer prevention. The study participants were healthy women who had worked full- or part-time at the time that the study began in 1999. The women were 57 years old on average, and many were professionals. The participants were placed in four groups based on their reported stress levels at work; researchers then looked ten years later to see how the participants fared.

Women who belonged to the high-stress group had 40 percent more risk of developing heart problems that require bypass surgery, or an artery-opening angioplasty, such as heart attacks, strokes or clogged arteries.

Job security, and the possibility of losing one’s job, is a stress factor among those who are employed, regardless of whether they are male or female. The researchers found out that women who were worried about losing their jobs had higher blood pressure, cholesterol, and body weight, when compared to women who were not in the same predicament.

Dr. Albert shared a few tips for female workers, such as exercising and refraining from taking work home.

The results of the study were reported during the American Heart Association conference in Chicago.

Chicago Health Screening

Job stress is something that so many are suffering from. From the bottom of the corporate pyramid to the very top, stress is something we — mere human beings — are susceptible of. Although our stressors differ from one profession to another, the end result is always the same. So here are simple things we can do to cope with work-related stress:

Separate personal life from work.

It’s tiresome to think of work all the time. It hinders us from enjoying the simplest things in life. Whenever something stressful hits work life, we must not allow it to interfere with our time with our families or with ourselves. We must find a way to separate ourselves from our work. We can go on a road trip or watch a movie. Sometimes, the best way to handle stress is to put it on the back-burner and just focus on something we enjoy.

Manage work load accordingly.

The worst thing we can do to ourselves is to carry all the weight of the workload on our shoulders. It’s time to give ourselves a break! We need to know how to delegate, manage the work load, or simply say no to additional assignments we know we can no longer handle. Also, we must not procrastinate. If we can do something right now, why wait later?

Don’t forget to eat.

Eating is valuable to our capability to handle stress. Stress is a condition that not only affects our minds, but it also lowers our immune system and contributes to fatigue. So, instead of spending mornings worrying about the day ahead, let us take time to eat a good breakfast that will give our bodies the energy needed to handle another hard day’s work.