Work stress as bad for you as secondhand smoke, study says

 
Working weekends, putting in extra hours, dealing with irritating bosses – odds are, most of us have had to deal with these kinds of on-the-job stresses during our careers, but new research has suggested that these experiences could be as harmful to our health as secondhand smoke.
According to CNN and Daily Mail reports, experts from Harvard University looked at evidence from 228 different studies investigating stress-related issues in the workplace, and found that by working long hours or worrying over job security, we are actually increasing the chances that we will experience a serious illness, and even increase our risk of an early death.
During their research, assistant professor of business administration Joel Goh and his colleagues found that highly demanding jobs increase the risk of having an illness diagnosed by a doctor by 35 percent, while long work hours increased risk of early death by nearly 20 percent. Fears about losing your job increased the odds of adverse health by about 50 percent, they added.
As Goh told CNN, “When you think about how much time individuals typically spend at work, it’s not that surprising.” He added that he hoped the study would help companies re-evaluate how they manage their employees, reducing the demand that work be completed more quickly and the need for people to put in longer hours in order to improve their overall wellbeing.

Re-examining the workplace atmosphere may be beneficial
The Harvard-led team looked at a variety of different job-related stressors believed to adversely impact a person’s health, including their employment status, the number of hours in which they work, whether or not they work shifts, how often work conflicted with family life, job demands, the availability of health insurance, and the perceived level of workplace fairness.
Next, they investigated how each of these factors affected four outcomes, the Daily Mail said: how people rated their physical health, how they rated their mental wellbeing, how likely they were to be diagnosed with a medical condition by a doctor, and the likelihood that they would have a premature death. They found that being unemployed, having little control over a job, or not having health insurance were all about as deadly as exposure to second-hand smoke.
Although some employers have wellness programs that may encourage employees to join a gym, lose some weight, or kick the smoking habit, Goh told Boston.com that they are often inadequate because they only target employee behavior and do not address the underlying causes of stress. A company should instead look at the kind of work environment that they create, he added.
“We’re not prescribing methodology to mitigate stress, but we’re trying to open up conversation to say ‘these things matter,’” the professor explained. “Assuming an employer cares about their employee for benevolent or bottom line reasons, we think this is something many employers haven’t thought on about. We’re trying to say employers have a new control they weren’t aware about.”
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Story Image: NBC/The Office