This story is from December 15, 2014

Bringing Work Home: More than family it’s a Heart Issue

Checking your work email at home or taking a call from the boss at weekends could be damaging your health, experts have warned.
Bringing Work Home: More than family it’s a Heart Issue
Checking your work email at home or taking a call from the boss at weekends could be damaging your health, experts have warned.
A study of 57,000 people found that more than half worked outside their normal hours - a trend driven by the ease of accessing work documents on smartphones and computer tablets.
• German study of 57,000 people found more than half worked out of hours
• Researchers found they were more prone to headaches, insomnia, heart problems, fatigue, anxiety and muscular complaints
• Calls for stricter rules to stop work invading valuable home life
The researchers found that those who worked in the evenings and at weekends were more likely to complain of insomnia, headaches, fatigue, anxiety and stomach problems.

Muscular problems and cardiovascular issues were also linked to working outside of normal hours, the German researchers found. The scientists, whose work is published in the journal Chronobiology International, call for far stricter rules to stop work invading people’s home life.

They said technological advances have created an “always-on culture which is ramping up pressure for people to be constantly available to work. And they argued that recreational time completely free of work is essential to help the body recuperate. The authors, from the Society for Labour, Industrial and Organizational Psychological Research in Oldenburg, Germany, based their findings on two major surveys of workers across Europe.
They wrote: “Information and communication technologies, such as computers and smartphones... have the potential benefit and the potential inherent danger of making it possible for employees to be available any time and anywhere. “ “This changes not only our work organisation, but probably also our patterns of social participation and integration. They added: “Free time should be free time, otherwise it must be expected that it cannot fulfil functions of recovery and recuperation.
Lead author Dr. Anna Arlinghaus, a public health expert at the, said: “Our findings indicate that even a small amount of supplemental work beyond contractually agreed work hours can lead to health issues. The correlation is very strong. Some large companies and even governments are beginning to raise concerns about the burden of mobile working. Separate research, carried out by technology retailer Pixmania in 2012, found that access to a smartphone adds two hours to the working day.
More than 90 per cent of office workers have an email-enabled phone, with a third accessing them more than 20 times a day, the research found.German car maker Daimler last month installed software on its 100,000 employee’s computers that automatically deletes emails if they are away on holiday.
Daimler spokesman Oliver Wihofszki said: “The idea behind it is to give people break and let them rest. Then they can come back to work with a fresh spirit.Managers at Deutsche Telekom agreed to stop sending emails to staff during evenings, weekends and holidays, while in 2011 Volkswagen announced company servers would stop routing emails to employees BlackBerrys in the evening.
France recently introduced rules which safeguard people working in the digital and consultancy sectors from work email outside office hours.And the German government is looking at similar measures.
Dr. Arlinghaus said: “Employers should start to look at how they can minimise their employees supplemental work.“It often needs to start at the top, with bosses taking the lead and attempting to change the culture at work.'Not every country will implement regulations like France, so companies should look to make improvements of their own accord.
Dr. Ketan Mehta makes a very pertinent observation “I am available 24 x 7 is a statement that we have heard quite frequently. What does this imply? It simply puts someone under immense mental pressure at any given time and that increases stress related hormone levels. This in turn increases the changes of getting a heart attack in future.
So, we have to decide the boundary of our work so that we can keep our stress levels under control and also increase the harmony in our family life”
Dr. A. V. Anjaneyulu, Past-President–Indian Acadamy of Echo Cardiography, Hyderabad adds: “Our observations in daily patient care correlate with these studies.We note increased incidence of Hypertension,chronic musculoskeletal pain, anxiety, intractable headaches, decreased alertness leading to accidents while driving, addiction to smoking or alcohol in people working in late hours or with insufficient sleep. Overall, lack of enough rest, sleep or leisure time makes one prone to heart diseases like-hypertension, coronary artery disease, metabolic disorders like Diabetes and its consequences, psychologic disorders –leading to social and domestic problems, autoimmune diseases like-connective tissue disorders involving multiptle organs of the body.
People keeping good health even upto their eigth or ninth decade generally have these traits-eating mostly at home, sufficient leisure as well as exercise times, good social and family relations, practicing yoga, meditaion etc.All these activities promote secretion of endorphins which negte the effects of stress hormones –like catecholamines.
Dr. Keshava R., Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Fortis Hospital, Bangalore feels that in the current scenario high job demands coupled with low job control to meet these demands are now classified as “High Stress Jobs.” These jobs, in particular increase the risk for Heart Health & mortality.
“Working long hours diminishes cognitive function & increases the heart rate. Japanese term this as” Karoshi “meaning death from overwork. Job stress & overtime leads to weight gain and obesity. Taking work home is called “Furoshiki” or cloaked overtime. Working over 10 hours a day was known to have caused Hypertension, chronic Heart disease in Japanese studies. It is observed that people who do overtime for long (from 45 hours per month i.e. 2-3 hours per day ) are at low risk and those working more overtime ( 4-5 hours per day ) are at high risk. He quotes a recent article title published in BMJ which is “Overwork can kill if combined with high demand, low control, peer social support”
Dr. Ranjan Kumar Sharma, Professor of Cardiology, Nil RatanSircar Medical College, Kolkata opines “For a long time the cardiologists have found that stress, depression and certain type of personalities (Type - A) are prone to heart attacks. Even lack of proper sleep is strongly correlated with not only heart attacks but also higher incidence of hypertension, diabetes and cerebral attacks. The explanation is absence of adequate sleep causes sympathetic over activity that is detrimental for above conditions.
The stress of compromise on leisure time as well as improper and inadequate rest should lead to sympathetic over activity and I strongly feel that this area should be investigated to explain higher incidences of heart diseases in persons who ‘bring work home’. As more and more persons are working ‘online’ and almost always connected through various wireless technologies, the epidemics of different above mentioned diseases are bound to happen. Well controlled trials are really needed at present on this subject and I believe this article might have stimulated some scientists to proceed further.
Insomnia, headaches, fatigue, anxiety and stomach problems not only affect the individuals but have huge impact on the close family members. Thus the quality of life of the family is affected and increasing incidence of heart disease will have impact on the life span as well. It will be a huge social problem and needs to be addressed by labor, public health departments and also at society levels. Publications on this issue can make our parliamentarians to properly amend and introduce laws to prevent the menace of ‘bringing work home’. We need a society that is smiling, mentally peaceful and physically healthy and all the obstacles must be removed at the earliest.”
With contributions from:
Dr. A. V. Anjaneyulu, Past-President–Indian Acadamy of Echo Cardiography, Hyderabad.
Dr. Ketan Mehta, Cardiologist, Mumbai.
Dr. Keshava R., Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Fortis Hospital, Bangalore.
Dr. Ranjan Kumar Sharma, Professor of Cardiology, Nil RatanSircar Medical College, Kolkata.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the Doctors are their independent professional judgement and we do not take any responsibility for the accuracy of their views. This should not be considered as an substitute for Physician's advice. Please consult your treating Physician for more details.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA