Long Hours and No Work-Life Balance May Lead to Heart Attacks
Although having a job is considered “lucky” nowadays, working too hard and not incorporating enough work life balance may not just be effecting your sleep and social life; it may also be effecting your health.
People who work an average of 11 or more hours per day have a 67% higher risk of suffering a heart attack or dying from heart disease than people who work a standard 7 to8-hour day, according to a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Those who work between 10-11 hours per day have a 45%t higher risk.
Work schedules may be an overlooked and underutilized early warning sign for heart disease, the researchers say.
Routinely burning the candle at both ends may not increase heart risk by itself, but it may be an indicator of an unhealthy lifestyle in general, according to experts who weren’t involved in the research. The study didn’t show a cause-and-effect relationship between long hours and heart attacks, they point out, and the apparent link could be due to a number of complicated health factors, including stress, lack of exercise, and eating high-calorie takeout rather than healthy home-cooked meals.
“Somebody who works hard may eat fast food and not be very active, so it may not be the long hours that give them heart disease,” says Stephen Kopecky, M.D., a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. “It’s eating fast food and being inactive.”
What’s more, the type of work, and how much you enjoy it, may make a big difference, Kopecky says. While sitting behind a desk for 11 hours may be unhealthy, farmers are notorious for working 12 or even 14 long, hard hours a day — and they tend to live longer than average, he says.
Source: Health.com article through CNN.com
