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Mental Stress/Work Schedules Affect Physical Health

How Work Stress Can Trigger Cardiovascular Disease

At the International Commission on Occupational Health's Fourth International Conference on Work Environment and Cardiovascular Diseases, attended by physicians, epidemiologists, registered nurses, psychologists, human factors researchers and experts in public health from more than 40 countries, new research was presented that detailed how negative work stress can trigger cardiovascular disease.

Among the work stress contributors were low social support from co-workers, little decision-making authority, imbalances between effort and reward, tighter deadlines and increased workload in a global economy that led to the prediction that by the year 2020, cardiovascular disease predicts will be the most common cause of death worldwide.

Lending credence to this alarming trend, keynote speaker Tage Kristensen, MD, cited a Norwegian study’s findings that even the rumor of a factory's closure had caused so much fear and anxiety that workers' average pulse and blood pressure spiked.

Different Stress Factors Affect Different Workers

Other researchers reviewed how different stress factors affect different levels of workers. Low echelon workers suffer most work stress from having little say at one's job or no ability to make decisions at work that leads to cardiovascular disease. While middle managers suffer from enduring resentment from those below them, yet still lacking the ultimate decision-making power in their positions, a no-win situation that eventually leads to heart problems and risk of heart attack.

A senior researcher at Denmark's National Institute of Occupational Health reported the findings from a five-year follow-up of 3,488 workers in the Danish Work Environment that found workers with low influence at work, low social support and high job insecurity were more likely to experience high psychological distress.

Increased Job Demands

A 2001 European Foundation survey of work stress found that workers experiencing increased job demands from tight deadlines on the job rose from 49% in 1990 to 60% in 2001.

Results from the Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program study found among 1,381 Swedish workers that an increase in job demands or interpersonal conflicts at work increased the risk of myocardial infarction (a heart attack). Other findings published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health revealed that workers having pressure or facing competition at work faced a risk of myocardial infarction six times greater than normal during the following 24 hours.

Stress Management Training Programs

There were also reports of successful stress management training programs. Tores Theorell, MD, a professor of psychosocial medicine in the public health sciences department of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden cited a 2001 yearlong training program (whose findings were published in Psychosomatic Medicine), for managers at an insurance company emphasizing what psychosocial elements employees need--such as social support, more decision-making authority over their own jobs, etc. In comparison with a division who did not receive this training, only the trained group’s workers showed a decrease in their morning cortisol levels – a direct indicator of reduced stress.

Rotating Shifts

Another study (published in the journal SLEEP), found that workers who perform rotating shifts have significantly lower levels of serotonin, a hormone and neurotransmitter in the central nervous system which plays a role in sleep and mood control. In addition to sleep problems, low levels of serotonin are also associated with other conditions such as anger, depression and anxiety. (Many successful antidepressants work by preventing the loss of serotonin.) Shift work sleep disorder is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder that occurs due to a work schedule that takes place during the normal sleep period.

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Sources: Work Hours and Self-Reported Hypertension Among Working People in California Hypertension. 2006;48:744 Influence of Lifestyle, Coping, and Job Stress on Blood Pressure in Men and Women Hypertension 1997;29:1 Bullying More Harmful Than Sexual Harassment On The Job American Psychological Association Press Release Comparing the Outcomes of Sexual Harassment and Workplace Aggression University of Manitoba, Winnipeg M. Sandy Hershcovis, PhD

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