Is Working Overtime Killing You?

Published on Tuesday, 10 August 2010 14:30

It’s not an uncommon practice - you put in the hours, you work past 6pm on a Friday evening, you go that extra mile to ensure you stay on top or financially stable. Overtime has been the bible of every career-minded young go-getter since the dawn of civilization when the rat race first began. One caveman looked at another caveman’s kill for the day and thought ‘tomorrow I’m going to make sure I get a bigger and better catch than this guy’. Thus it all began. So he put in the hours and the effort, probably sacrificed some quality time with Mrs. caveman in the process, and lo and behold, the next day he’s the one with the biggest slab of meat and the envious eyes are watching him. It’s probable that this type of competition and instinct to do better is what has spurred on evolution and can force us to be the best we can possibly be. But where do you draw the line? When does putting in the hours become an actual danger to your health?

According to a recent study for the European Heart Journal, working overtime can contribute towards coronary heart disease and can ultimately lead to suffering a fatal heart attack. The study, which was part funded by the British Heart Foundation, tracked 6,000 British civil servants aged between 39 and 61 for an average of 11 years. Just over 4000 of who were men. The results showed there were 369 cases of heart disease that caused death, suffered a heart attack or developed angina. Marianna Virtanen, an epidemiologist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, along with colleagues in England and France, stated the results were independent of other risk factors such as smoking, being overweight, having high cholesterol and job stress level.

After accounting for known heart risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure, doctors found those who worked three to four hours of overtime a day still ran a 60% higher risk of contracting the disease. Those who worked between three and four hours extra a day were most at risk, while those who worked only one or two hours more suffered no adverse effects. Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation, Cathy Ross said, “This study raises further questions about how our working lives can influence our risk of heart disease. Although the researchers showed a link between working more than three hours overtime everyday and heart problems the reasons for the increased risk was not clear.

“The researchers suggest a number of reasons - ‘hidden’ high blood pressure, reduced sleeping hours and psychological stress. These may affect the mechanisms that cause heart disease, but it could simply be that working long hours means we have less time to look after ourselves.“If we’re stuck in the office we have less time to relax, get a good night’s sleep, and take enough exercise; all of which have been found to help reduce stress levels and protect against heart disease.”

According to the studies official report, the aim was to “examine the association between overtime work and incident coronary heart disease (CHD) among middle-aged employees.” Also factored into the study were the personality types of the subjects themselves. Those who showed symptoms of personality type A were more likely to work overtime than those who didn’t. The studies official report states, “Type A behaviour pattern is viewed to represent a specific adverse behavioural style in response to environmental stress and can be a risk factor. Behaviour is also characterised by a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time, and is also believed to be characterised by aggressiveness and irritability.”

But even though this personality type is more likely to work overtime, adjustments were made and the results still showed the same. Around 2.6 million people in the UK are living with CHD, and there are numerous contributing factors, such as high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels, diabetes, obesity, or smoking. So how reliable is this study? The researchers themselves confess that there needs to be more research before they can confirm their findings as concrete evidence. Epidemiologist Marianna Virtanen said, “Our findings suggest a link between working long hours and increased coronary heart disease risk, but more research is needed before we can be confident that overtime work would cause coronary heart disease.”

The study only follows office workers, so what about blue collar workers, different age groups, and those who work manual labour and more physically demanding jobs? Also what about those who need to work overtime in order to stay afloat financially. The study may be all well and good telling people to work less but what if working less means going under? The financial state of the country is not one of the healthiest at present, so how helpful is this study when a lot of people don’t have a choice as to how much overtime they can restrict themselves to? Clearly there are more questions raised than answered.

The researchers of the study wondered about the connection between overtime and increased cardiovascular risk and came up with a few theories; such as whether people might try to cope with long hours by drinking or smoking, or whether people who work late struggle to get enough sleep. If this is the case, these unhealthy behaviors could explain the higher risk of heart problems, rather than the overtime. However, after accounting for these things in the results, overtime still made a difference. Another theory is that people who spend lots of time at work pay less attention to their health, and are less likely to find time to visit a doctor when they’re ill, which could mean their health suffers as a result.

Psychological distress that comes with depression and anxiety, and possibly with not enough sleep, or not enough time to unwind before going to sleep can also contribute, along with high blood pressure that is associated with work-related stress but is hidden, because it doesn't necessarily show up during medical check-ups. The chronic experience of stress often associated with working long hours could adversely affect metabolic processes in the entire body. “Until researchers understand how our working lives can affect the risk to our heart health there are simple ways to look after your heart health at work, like taking a brisk walk at lunch, taking the stairs instead of the lift, or by swapping that biscuit for a piece of fruit,” advises Cathy Ross.

But if you think the problem is with just us Brits, then you’d be wrong. The Japanese even have a word for deaths that are caused by excessive work. The Japanese government to refer to deaths —usually from heart attack or stroke — that are connected to working overtime and long hours uses the term ‘karoshi’. Approximately 150 workers die of karoshi each year, according to government data. Companies in Japan are increasingly being held liable for karoshi related deaths and illnesses. In 2009 a judge ruled that a man’s suicide was due to his working conditions, and ordered his employer to pay over £500,000 to his surviving relatives.

A worker at a McDonald’s branch in Japan died of ‘karoshi’, according to officials at the local government labour bureau. The 41-year-old woman had put in around 80 hours of overtime a month for six months before she died. “We determined her work caused the illness,” said an official at the agency. The worker died in October 2007, after collapsing during a company training program. McDonald’s Japan has yet to comment on the case, saying the company hadn’t been contacted by authorities and needed to confirm the labour bureau’s findings. In an earlier karoshi related case, McDonald’s paid a worker over £40,000 in back overtime wages after his doctor warned him he was risking a stroke by working too hard.

In an accompanying editorial to the recent UK study, Gordon McInnes, a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Glasgow, explained that until the subject is studied more in depth “physicians should be aware of the risks of overtime and take seriously symptoms such as chest pain, monitor and treat recognised cardiovascular risk factors, particularly blood pressure, and advise an appropriate lifestyle modification.”

McInnes concluded by quoting the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, ‘If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considers work important.’

Whether the risks of working overtime are due to the work itself or the lack of time to unwind and take exercise is yet to be determined, but the overall message is most defiantly clear.

Too much work is bad for your health. I knew it all along, now I just have to convince my boss.

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