Our 24/7 society is causing us to work weirder and more non traditional hours than ever before, and, in a society that lionizes hard work, more and more people are working longer hours than ever before.
But a new study by the UT Health School of Public Health in Houston reveals that working chronically long hours really can kill you, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"What we found was that working 52 hours a week, on average, or more, over several years, increased risks for several chronic health outcomes, including generally poor health, several types of cardio-vascular disease, and even incident cancer," said Dr. Sadie Conway, a UT Health professor who conducted the study.
She says the study indicated your risk varies by the type of work you do, and your basic physical health.
"Our hope for our future research is to really better understand what individual attributes might make you at greater risk or at less risk, and the same thing when it comes to the work itself."
But Conway said one thing is clear from her research. Being a workaholic in today's world is not a good thing, and we should begin to study interventions to help people who work too much, just like we have interventions for alcoholics and drug abusers, especially when it is clearly affecting a person's health.
"If you are feeling fatigued, overworked, stressed, and you feel that it is affecting your physical health, we are all working a lot of hours, with a lot of stresses these days," she said. "But this might be a conversation you might want to have with a spouse, with a physician, or your manager."
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