Are you working yourself to death?
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It is common knowledge that working long hours is not good for our health. With levels of unemployment rising each week, more and more people are doing punishing schedules at work without complaining. They know pushing themselves that little extra may offer them immunity when the inevitable pandemic of job cuts sweeps by. Working over-time is also something many people are now resorting to as a way of keeping up with the avalanche of monthly bills that come with the mail. While most employers feel that this increases productivity by getting as much as they can from their employees, there is a potential deleterious health risk to the workers which can eventually lead to a drop in productivity when employees are unable to turn up for work because of ill health.
Researchers in Denmark recently revealed that most men work up to 40 hours a week or more and that this can affect the general well being of an individual. This study can be applied to the U.S where men have been known to work even longer hours – 60 hours a week – giving them a 60% chance of falling ill because of high stress levels compromising their immune system. Culturally, working long hours has been seen as a sign of having good work ethic and ambition but the toll it’s having on a sizable number of workers in various industries is an indication of how unhealthy this practice is.
The announcement made in Britain recently that junior doctors working hours would be cut from 56 to 48 has not been well received. Considering the large number of medical mistakes that have been made in the past by over-worked doctors, one would expect the reduction in hours to provide some much needed respite and time off. The British Medical Association has however been engaged in scaremongering by claiming that this will have a negative – in terms of doctors not gaining enough hands-on medical experience – impact on the already under staffed National Health Service.
At least two thirds of people are known to have experienced a negative effect on their personal life and have at some point had mental health problems because of not having a good balance between work and home life. This was revealed in a survey carried out by The Mental Health Foundation in the United Kingdom. Those in middle-age who work more than 55 hours a week are more at risk of developing dementia. The stress from over-working can just be as bad for the brain as smoking. Despite overwhelming evidence that long working hours affect the quality of productivity in many industries, many employers continue to carry out this practice. (See: Engaging the Hearts and Minds of All Your Employees: How to Ignite Passionate Performance for Better Business Results
Many workers realise that they are being over worked, underpaid but simply have no choice because they have to bring in the bread and butter in these harsh economic times. It goes without saying that more needs to be done to strike healthy work-life balance so that our societies can be more productive and people do not work themselves to the grave. (Read: This Is How We Do It: A Practical Guide for the Working Mother
