A lot of work is harmful to health
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Scientists from Australia found out how much time a week a person can work without harming one's health.
Specialists from the Australian National University conducted a long-term monitoring of 8,000 people with different schedules of the working day and the work week. Their conclusions they shared with the periodical Social Science & Medicine.
Taking into account the received results, the scientists recommended not to work more than 39 hours a week to preserve their health, which almost corresponds to the eight-hour working day of the five-day working week.
If the work schedule is built differently and made longer, it will have a very negative impact on the human body - both physically and mentally. A busy week exhausts a person, deprives him of the opportunity to fully eat and give time to his health.
This information should be useful not only for standard employees, but also for employers. After all, it is not at all in vain in a number of European countries in recent years often practiced a flexible working schedule system.
The right to choose their own work schedule is received by many employees from management as an encouragement. Scientists also argue that this approach also helps to improve productivity - and several times. All people are different - and if one is easier to work with in the morning and into the evening, the other prefers to wake up for dinner, but it works without days off. Given such differences, you can "negotiate" with employees and allow them to work when they are more comfortable.
For example, in countries such as Sweden, the United Kingdom and Norway, a free working day schedule is established by law. This is especially true for women - after all, in addition to the main work, they often have to do quite a lot of domestic things. And this also affects the state of the nervous system and of the whole organism as a whole.
A busy person can acquire various problems over time. First of all, these are diseases of the heart and blood vessels, peptic ulcer and chronic gastritis. In addition, such people suffer from a lack of immunity: they can ache a common cold several times a year.
Physical and moral exhaustion are also manifested by excessive temper tantrums, irritability, anxiety. This situation can leave its imprint on personal life: scandals, conflicts and even divorces are frequent in families of workaholics.
It's another matter if an employee works hard for the reason that he likes it. A person who is in love with his work initially enjoys it - and in such a situation, the recommendation made by scientists on the labor limit is not taken into account.
Psychologists support scientists in this matter. Since the time spent by a person to do work prevails over the rest period, sooner or later the inevitable occurrence of nervous and physical overloads, sleep disturbances, which, in turn, leads to the development of diseases.
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