Work stress and poor sleep can kill you
EMPLOYEES with high blood pressure, who suffer from sleep difficulties and have a stressful job, have a three-fold higher risk of cardiovascular death, warn German researchers.
Published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, the study reveals that a third of active people suffer from high blood pressure.
People affected by this cardiovascular issue, in addition to excess stress at work as well as poor-quality sleep, are particularly at risk.
Study author Karl-Heinz Ladwig, professor at the faculty of medicine at the Technical University of Munich, Germany said: “If you have stress at work, sleep helps you recover. Unfortunately, poor sleep and job stress often go hand in hand. When combined with hypertension, the effect is even more toxic.”
The authors of the study define work stress as working under pressure, with little room to manoeuvre.
The study examined 1,959 employees with high blood pressure aged 25 to 65 years old.
None suffered from heart disease or diabetes. Participants were questioned on their work environment and the quality of their sleep to determine the impact of these two factors on their cardiovascular health.
“If you have high demands but also high control, in other words you can make decisions, that can be positive for health. But being entrapped in a pressured situation that you have no power to change is harmful,” noted Ladwig.
Impaired sleep, in this case, refers to difficulty sleeping at night and/or the inability to sleep through the night.
BeWare The risKs
Compared to people not stressed at work and who sleep well, people with both risk factors were three times more likely to die from a cardiovascular illness. The risk was 1.6 times higher in people stressed at work and 1.8 times higher in people who sleep poorly or not enough.
“A stressful job and poor sleep over many years, which fade energy resources may lead to an early grave,” warned Ladwig, emphasising the importance of physical activity, maintaining a healthy diet and carrying out relaxation exercises to reduce the risks.
“Employers should provide stress management and sleep treatment in the workplace, he added, especially for staff with chronic conditions like hypertension,” he added.