Workers who are always ‘on’ risk their health

When Maureen Hennis was 55, she had a heart attack. “I thought it was a stitch at first,” she says, more than a decade l ater. “Being a woman, I thought, it’ ll be fine, just get on with it. I thought people who had heart attacks were overweight businessmen. I didn’t realize ladies who were quite fit could also have them. But, in the middle of work, I collapsed on the floor and was taken straight to hospital.”

At the time, Hennis was the CEO of the British charity Pets as Therapy. She was working seven days a week, hadn’t taken a holiday in years and had no concept of work- life balance. She answered emails and phone calls late into the night.

“As we were a charity, I always thought someone might need us” — and when she wasn’t at her office, she was working in the home study she shared with her self-employed husband.

In retrospect, it is clear she was a work- life merger, a driven employee who enjoyed her job so much that she tried to merge it with her everyday life. “My whole life revolved around work,” she admits. “I loved my job so much that I didn’t realize what I was feeling was stress. That was my big problem — I loved it to the detriment of my health.”

Her f i rst heart attack should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn’t until seven more years of working nonstop that Hennis realized just how much her health was suffering.

“One day, I went to my GP after having pains, and I was sent straight i nto hospital,” she says. “I had another blocked arter y. They’d caught it just before it turned into a heart attack. My GP told me I was killing myself. They were her exact words. It was really quite scary to hear.”

Hennis is one of many Britons who are facing the severe health consequences, not of long office hours — but of taking work home with them.

A recent study backed by AXA PPP Healthcare found that more than half of City workers suffer dangerously high levels of stress outside of the office, as they fail to balance t heir home and work lives. The study, which used wristbands to monitor 550 staff from the London offices of French bank BNP Paribas, found that stress levels remained “dangerously” high until about 8: 30 p. m., when young children were put to bed. Some workers’ levels were still high between midnight and 1 a. m. Others, whose sleep patterns were interrupted around 3 a. m., were found to have checked emails before returning to bed, which is one of the worst things you can do if you want that all- important restful sleep.

For Hennis, the biggest stress was not the day-to-day struggle of her job, but the way it crept into her everyday life. “I was linked to the phone and emails 24/ 7,” she says.

“I used to travel around the country a lot, but that wasn’t the stressful part — it was not being able to switch off. I couldn’t sleep properly because I had things going through my mind continuously. I used to say I wish I could unplug my brain.”

She hopes now that other workaholics will take heed of her cautionary tale,. Yet Anna Rasmussen, founder of Open Blend Method — an online tool that enables managers and employees to talk about their work- life blend — says that in 2017, it is nigh-on impossible to have an old-fashioned 9-to-5 job.

“There’s no such thing as a work-life balance any more,” she says. “One of the reasons everything’s so stressful is the world we’ve lived in has completely changed. There’s a rise in the twoparent family, so now everyone has to blend their home and work life, while technology means we can work anywhere and never quite switch off.”

Many c ompanies are introducing initiatives such as “smart working,” where employees can occasionally work from home or parttime. It sounds progressive, yet Rasmussen explains that if employees are not guided properly, it can lead to increased stress, as they suddenly have to cope with managing their own hours and employing self-discipline.

Stress management coach Liz Tucker discovered this when she left her job in customer relations to set up a life- coaching business. “At first, it was more stressful than working in a company,” she says. “You don’t have colleagues to share it with; it’s all down to you. If you stop working, you’re not earning money. It can be quite challenging.”

She eventually managed the stress by creating a distinction between her personal life and her work. “I make sure I set aside ‘ me time,’ and I stop work at 6 p.m. I do not check my emails again until 8 a. m. the following morning. I’ve had to discipline myself to do it. I’ve learned over the years that you don’t become more productive by logging on. And if you keep going without a break, you become l ess productive, which adds to the stress.”

This method doesn’t work for everyone — Rasmussen says that avoiding her phone and work emails can lead to more stress. “Some people need to look at their emails to switch off,” she says. “On holiday, if you spend half an hour managing your inbox, you can forget about it for the rest of the day. For people like me, it can relieve stress to check in.”

Her solution is for employees and managers to talk regularly about work- life merges and how they can best handle them: “It’s about listening, and managers asking the individual what the business can do to support them.”

For Hennis, the only way to handle her stress- related health problems was to quit. She took early retirement and moved with her husband to Scotland, where they are making up for their “lost years” by taking as many holidays as possible.

“Things are very different now,” she laughs. “I’m still busy — I’m a consultant for other charities and do public speaking — but I have no stress. I’m a totally different person, so much calmer, and for the first time in years, I can sleep through the night.

“Looking back, I think how on earth did I work as hard as I did? I dread to think how many hours I worked week. I was a workaholic — and it could have killed me.”