Is your job killing you?

[SoReady]

Your Job Might Be Killing you...

Your job might be killing you - Fortune Management

...when researchers at the business and medical schools at Tel Aviv University teamed up to see if they could find a link between job burnout and heart disease, they got a surprise: The most disenchanted employees developed heart problems at a 79% higher rate than their less stressed peers.

One more reason to attain balance in life or Retire Early.

 

[Meadbh]

That was my major motivation for ER.

 

[heeyy_joe]

All of our jobs kill all of us - one day at a time.

 

[traineeinvestor]

Thanks for posting.

While this does not surprise me at all, it would have been interesting to see the results if they had managed to control for non-job related stress factors as well.

 

[ChainsBeGone]

All of our jobs kill all of us - one day at a time.

And sometimes hour by hour, minute by minute.

 

[Chuckanut]

My job wasn't killing me. Sure, it had its ups and downs, but nothing that can't be handled by a rational person. What was 'killing' me was the thought of devoting so much of my remaining time as a healthy able individual to work rather than doing the things I have been wanting to do for so many years. At some point one has to realize that one's remaining time on this planet is to valuable to save up for some future pie-in-the-sky benefit.

 

[eytonxav]

When I retired from my prior megacorp in 2003, at age 54, that job was literally killing me emotionally and physically. I did go back to work in a much less stressful role and while the present job is enjoyable, the commute is not, and that is what made me decide to retire for good.

 

[brewer12345]

Without any doubt in my mind.

 

[jollystomper]

My job wasn't killing me. Sure, it had its ups and downs, but nothing that can't be handled by a rational person. What was 'killing' me was the thought of devoting so much of my remaining time as a healthy able individual to work rather than doing the things I have been wanting to do for so many years. At some point one has to realize that one's remaining time on this planet is to valuable to save up for some future pie-in-the-sky benefit.

+1

Funny, I've mentioned to a couple of close friends that I'm seriously considering retiring in 2014, and the separate reactions were both along the lines of "but you enjoy your job so much!"

 

[FIREd]

My job wasn't killing me physically (although working everyday with deadly chemicals can't be too good for you). But it was killing my soul.

 

[W2R]

My job wasn't killing me physically (although working everyday with deadly chemicals can't be too good for you). But it was killing my soul.

+1 to the latter.

My job was also terrible for my health, since it involved sitting in an office all day long while fending off office politics. I did get some travel and sea time too. While sitting in a cramped airplane seat didn't help much, working at sea was much better for my physical health.

 

[Midpack]

So the 20% who self identified themselves as more stressed out based on a 5 question survey have a higher incidence of heart disease than 79% of their less stressed (also from the survey) coworkers. Has to be job burnout. I wonder if they noted cholesterol, drug or tobacco use, family history, diet, age, physcial (in)activity, obesity or any other known heart disease risk factors? But it's on the Internet, so it has to be true...

The Tel Aviv University study posed these five questions, asking participants to answer with "never," "sometimes," "often," or "always":

1. How often are you tired and lacking energy to go to work in the morning?
2. How often do you feel physically drained, as if your batteries were dead?
3. How often is your thinking process sluggish or your concentration impaired?
4. How often do you struggle to think over complex problems at work?
5. How often do you feel emotionally detached from coworkers or customers, and unable to respond to their needs?

Two or more responses of "often" or "always" are a red flag. Toker notes that time-tested stress reducers like exercise and more sleep could help. Looking for a different job might help even more.

What could be more objective? Cause vs effect vs cause vs...

 

[Dawg52]

I killed my job. I retired.

 

[UserRequested]

I know not everyone can easily do this, but whenever i got sick of my job or felt I needed a change, I found another. Sometimes just moving to another town/country has the added benefit of leaving a job you no longer enjoy AND experiencing a new adventure while you're at it.
I've never stayed in a company for more than 5 years. I may have been financially better off if I'd stayed, but the new experiences I gained by moving definitely made up for it.

 

[ziggy29]

I killed my job. I retired.

I just got pushed.

Long term I'm sure I'll look back and be thankful, once the dust settles and I'm more sure we're landing on our feet.

 

[samclem]

So the 20% who self identified themselves as more stressed out based on a 5 question survey have a higher incidence of heart disease than 79% of their less stressed (also from the survey) coworkers. Has to be job burnout.
. . .
What could be more objective? Cause vs effect vs cause vs...

Or the reverse. Surely many of those who had heart disease were aware of that fact. And being more aware of their limited mortality could be expected to increase stress, and probably decrease their happiness with spending 40+ hours per week in the cube farm.

 

[ER Eddie]

I don't have any doubt that excessive job stress leads to problems with physical health, or that my own job has probably shaved years off my life, but I have to say, that is one crappy piece of research.

Just look at the questions they used to measure "job burnout."

1. How often are you tired and lacking energy to go to work in the morning?
2. How often do you feel physically drained, as if your batteries were dead?
3. How often is your thinking process sluggish or your concentration impaired?
4. How often do you struggle to think over complex problems at work?
5. How often do you feel emotionally detached from coworkers or customers, and unable to respond to their needs?

Someone needs to take a course in test construction. First, it's too short. Second, it has no internal consistency. Third, it claims to measure job burnout but only 1 of the questions asks about job burnout. The other 4 ask about physical and mental fatigue, which can be caused by a huge variety of different conditions, including the same medical illnesses that this survey supposedly "predicts." Can you say "confounded"?

Anyhow, yes, my job is killing me. Hopefully slowly enough so that I can get out of there before I croak.

 

[Meadbh]

Since you brought up confounding variables, I decided to search for the original article using Google Scholar. It is a 27 page review article. I will read it later and I will share my critical appraisal with the forum.

 

[Rambler]

Yeah, my job was killing me. It was the constant stress of ever higher demands with ever fewer resources, most of which demands were unreasonable at best. The biggest killer was one person in the hierarchy whose ethics and integrity I found to be lacking, and whose demeanor was totally devoid of humanity. It drove my reasonably good blood pressure up to 168/110 (with spikes as high as 198/125), I was clenching my teeth constantly...so much so that my jaw always hurt. Doc put me on meds to bring it down. Four months later I retired. A month and a half in to retirement, I halved my dosage. Another month later (about 3 weeks ago) I went off the med. This morning's BP was 108/68, with a RHR of 48.

Yes, the job was killing me. I had "one more year" syndrome for a long time, and I have no doubt that if I had stuck around for "one more" this time, I would have significantly damaged my health, perhaps beyond repair.

R

 

[Meadbh]

Rambler, that is fantastic news! Now you know for sure you made the right decision.

My BP has gone down, too.

 

[ER Eddie]

That is good news about the bp, congrats. Those were dangerously high levels. I'm on two bp meds myself, and I'm hoping that when I'm able to retire, I'll be able to cut down to one (some of this is just heredity, unfortunately).

Meadbh, I didn't mean to send you to the archives for research... Who knows, maybe that summary didn't do it justice, and the actual research was more thorough. I hope so. Anyhow, the point is that job stress leads to physical illness, which is something I don't think anyone would argue with. I certainly wouldn't...

 

[scrabbler1]

It wasn't the job which was killing me, it was the commute which was killing me. That and the growing struggle to even catch my train 2 days a week had gotten worse and worse.

 

[palomalou]

it was killing my soul.

Yes, precisely.

 

[obgyn65]

Yes I feel burnt out. My BP must be up too. Did you notice that most of my posts tend to be written between 1 and 4 am ? Can't sleep well, even with meds and exercise.

 

[mak palen]

What was killing me was the thought of devoting so much of my remaining time as a healthy able individual to work rather than doing the things I have been wanting to do for so many years

with you all the way on that. but now i find i have too much time and isolation on my hands .. and miss the paycheck but hey i escaped from the cube farm and avoided an early heart attack and checked off a few more things on my bucket list