“Take it easy. Stop working so hard. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack. I’m really worried about you.” At one point in your career, you may have heard this from a loved one.
You probably met this concern with excuses and rationalizations saying things like, “The company is depending on me. I’m close to getting a raise and promotion if I keep this up!” You don’t think of the toll taken on your emotional, mental and physical health. It’s all about building and growing your career, in an attempt to climb the corporate ladder.
It’s easy to believe that you can keep putting in the long hours and endure the unrelenting stress without repercussions. There is a feeling of invincibility. “Bad things happen to other people,” you tell yourself. “I’m relatively young and healthy,” you believe. “These are my prime earning years and I have to hustle.”
The problem is, according to a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), “Long working hours led to 745,000 deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease in 2016, a 29% increase since 2000.” The substantial number of strokes and heart disease resulted from working “at least 55 hours a week.”
The study by the WHO and ILO concludes that working 55 or more hours per week is associated with a higher risk of a stroke and dying from ischemic heart disease, compared to working 35 to 40 hours a week. There is heightened concern that people are working increasingly longer hours, which puts more people at risk of an “early death.” They are literally working themselves to death.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out, “The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the way many people work.“ Dr. Tedros added, “Teleworking has become the norm in many industries, often blurring the boundaries between home and work.” With the added pressure of putting in longer hours to save your job and appease the boss, the risks of health diseases rises. Dr. Tedros warned, “No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease. Governments, employers and workers need to work together to agree on limits to protect the health of workers.”
Dr. Maria Neira, director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, at the WHO, agreeing with Dr. Tedros said, “Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard. It’s time that we all, governments, employers and employees wake up to the fact that long working hours can lead to premature death.”
Here are some suggestion from the WHO on how to protect workers’ health:
- Governments can introduce, implement and enforce laws, regulations and policies that ban mandatory overtime and ensure maximum limits on working time
- Bipartite or collective bargaining agreements between employers and workers’ associations can arrange working time to be more flexible, while at the same time agreeing on a maximum number of working hours
- Employees could share working hours to ensure that numbers of hours worked do not climb above 55 or more per week.
One of the positive things to come out of the pandemic was the start of making it socially acceptable to talk about mental health issues, our addiction to the hustle-porn work ethic, the intense and unrelenting pressure from bosses to put in long hours and the accompanying feelings of burnout.
In our society, we’ve mostly ignored mental health matters, especially as it relates to the job. It’s okay to say you broke a leg, yet it’s uncomfortable to share that you’re wrestling with self-doubt or depression. Studies have shown that people have endured a great deal of stress, anxiety and isolation during the pandemic. For many folks, working from home meant spending more hours logged on the computer, including nights and weekends, in a nerve-racking attempt to ensure that you hold onto your job.
In a LinkedIn post that went viral, Jonathan Frostick, a U.K.-based regulatory professional and program manager at HSBC, shared his personal near-death experience. Frostick woke up to the fact that life is too short to slavishly devote himself to his job and company. His epiphany in recognizing the need to have a work-life balance before it’s too late resonated with the predominantly white-collar members on the social media platform.
“I didn’t get a flash of light, my life race through my mind,” Frostick said. His initial concerns were all work related, stating, “F—-, I needed to meet with my manager tomorrow; this isn’t convenient. How do I secure the funding for X (work stuff)? S——, I haven’t updated my will. I hope my wife doesn’t find me dead.”
While he laid in a hospital bed, Frostick decided he was going to implement the following changes in his life—if he didn’t die. He said, “I’m not spending all day on Zoom anymore. I’m restructuring my approach to work. I’m really not going to be putting up with any s—- at work ever again—life literally is too short. I’m losing 15kg. I want every day to count for something at work [or] else I’m changing my role. I want to spend more time with my family.” Frostick concluded, “And that, so far, is what near death has taught me.”
Source: Forbes
