Why You Should Say No To Long Working Hours?

In today’s super-competitive corporate work culture, the nine-to-five working hours almost sounds historic. Although it is never mentioned in the contract or so, it is most likely expected to stay in the office past one’s scheduled working hours. One might like it or not but eventually tend to follow the so-called “good trend” set by their fellow workers, in order to be admired at work. However, putting in that overtime might get you in your boss’ good books, but your body won’t thank you.

One may think, they are getting more done by working longer, but in fact, every hour we put in over 40 hours a week is making us less productive, both in the short and long term. Studies have found that the “sweet spot” for optimum productivity is 40hours a week. Let’s know how long working hours affects our lifestyle:

Physical Health

These days, just sitting and working for an entire day for many extended hours is quite usual to get the job done in the companies. This sedentary behavior is the "new smoking", as quoted by the researchers at Columbia University Medical Centre. According to their report published in Annals of Internal Medicine in September 2017, they found that employees who were sedentary for more than 13 hours a day were twice as likely to die prematurely as those who were inactive for 11.5 hours. One can imagine how dangerous long periods of sitting are for our health?

Furthermore, there is an increased risk of heart problems among those workers who put in regular overtime, according to the researchers at University College London. As reported in the European Heart Journal, which studied around 85,494 workers from the UK, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. The study revealed that the participants who worked more than 54 hours per week were about 40 percent more likely to develop atrial fibrillation, a common cardiac arrhythmia, in the following 10 years than those who kept 35-40 hour workweeks. 

Mental Health

Working long hours can definitely take a toll on your physical health, but that’s not where the negative effects end. According to research, long working hours are just as likely to affect your mental health. The findings of a study published in PLoS ONE in January 2012 suggest that people who regularly work more than 11-hour days more than double their chances of major depression as compared to employees who typically work about eight hours a day. "Long working hours are likely to be related to less time to relax and less sleep," said study researcher Marianna Virtanen, Ph.D. from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki. "It is also possible that excessive working hours result in problems with close relationships, which in turn, may trigger depression," she added.

One of the main features of regular overtime is not having a fixed work schedule. A study published in Neurobiology of Aging talks about how these irregular working hours can have an adverse effect on your cognitive abilities. The researchers noted that they found workers who complete varying shifts rather than a fixed workday needed more time to complete a test that is frequently used by doctors to screen of cognitive impairment. The symptoms include trouble remembering, learning new things, and making decisions that affect their everyday life. However, the researchers also said that shifting to a regular workday could help reverse the ill-effects of shift-work.

Christian Benedict, associate professor at Uppsala University, said, “Our results indicate that shift work is linked to poorer performance on a test that is frequently used to screen for cognitive impairment in humans. The poorer performance was only observed in current shift workers and those who worked shifts during the past five years. In contrast, no difference was observed between non-shift workers and those who had quit shift work more than five years ago. The latter could suggest that it may take at least five years for previous shift workers to recover brain functions that are relevant to the performance on this test.”

Career Opportunities

Disregarding above all health warnings, one might still want to burn the midnight oil at work for the sake of their career growth. To throw some light on this misconception, refer to the following study which analyzed data from 51,895 employees from 36 European countries in a variety of industries. The researchers found that more work effort actually predicted reduced well-being and career-related outcomes. The study authors, Argyro Avgoustaki and Hans Frankfort, stated that "the work effort, whether overtime or work intensity, did not predict any positive outcomes for employees". x