Overwork Killed More Than 745,000 People In A Year, WHO Study Finds
Working long hours poses an occupational health risk that kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, the World Health Organization says.
People working 55 or more hours each week face an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared to people following the widely accepted standard of working 35 to 40 hours in a week, the WHO says in a study that was published Monday in the journal Environment International.
"No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, calling on governments, businesses and workers to find ways to protect workers' health.
The global study, which the WHO calls the first of its kind, found that in 2016, 488 million people were exposed to the risks of working long hours.
In all, more than 745,000 people died that year from overwork that resulted in stroke and heart disease, according to the WHO.
"Between 2000 and 2016, the number of deaths from heart disease due to working long hours increased by 42%, and from stroke by 19%," the WHO said as it announced the study, which it conducted with the International Labour Organization.
Interesting read - https://www.npr.org/2021/05/17/997462169/thousand…
Thoughts?
I would argue there may be a strong correlation between higher work hours limiting your ability to eat healthily and go to the gym. Not sure if it's really an honest claim to state "working" killed 750k people. Unless you're GS TMT, you should be able to find time to stay in shape.
This reeks of UBI propaganda.
Not really.
https://nypost.com/2019/07/08/ex-kkr-dealmaker-alex-navab-53-died-while…
"In 2013, he was co-head of North American private equity at KKR when he collapsed during the annual meeting of fund investors."
"Navab was diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia, according to one source."
Anecdotal, not saying it doesn’t happen but any study that the WHO puts out has an agenda. Pretty much lost all faith in these “health” organizations over the last year.
My first thought, along with “oh, how else can we make the US less competitive.” The WHO has already proven themselves to be a joke and I have no reason to take them seriously.
It’s an insult to democracies across the world that the US rejoined the WHO. They refuse to give Taiwan a seat because China doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country. Meanwhile Taiwan handled COVID better than any country in the world.
Most people don't take care of their bodies and health and work themselves to death. They eat and drink like shit without sleep or exercise.
You can always make the choice to help yourself; most people don't have this discipline. What do you expect?
Is it most people, or mostly lawyers/doctors/engineers/bankers? Your on an wall street forum, so you are coming with biases.
All my friends enjoy life 9-5pm (not AM for you hardos)
When he is talking about "most people" he isn't talking about the people who have the means to be educated on how to take care of their bodies. He is talking about the rust belt workers, the truck drivers, the people in factories who are slaving away for ever dime of OT they can make and blowing it on beer, scratchers, and fast food day in and day out. That's not a knock against those people, it's a sad reality. There is a large portion of this country living pay check to pay check, they work long hours because they have to. This study is disingenuous because contrary to the headline, it isn't the long hours causing the stress, it's the necessity of having to work those hours to survive.
Sure, you pointed out the KKR guy above, and while it is a tragedy, it is not representative of the people who are most impacted by long hours. Get your head out of your ass champ. People in banking, law, corp fin, consulting, etc. working long hours are doing it because they want to, or because they have golden handcuffs. They aren't struggling to put food on the table.
Edit: Before the MS is thrown, if you can't differentiate between the stress of not turning a pitch deck in time and making sure your kids are fed, you really need a dose of reality.
You can’t really make that conclusion for everyone without analyzing sub groups. The type of job, your genetics, what you’re doing outside of work, makes it all depend person to person.
A lot of people lose discipline with longer hours and treat themselves more often to compensate. (Myself and many other of my colleagues realized we did this - we would have unhealthy meals more often because of a lack of time and because we 'deserved' it for working longer).
If you had great dietary and exercise discipline, I fail to see how working 55 hours or more takes a toll on health given that you're not sacrificing sleep in any way. (i.e. if you can work 45 hours and play video games for another 40 hours a week, how is working 85 hours any different?)
What this study fails to mention, so I guess we can't know for sure, is the importance of being a in a parasympathetic state vs. a sympathetic state in regards to the nervous system. In order to recover, heal, regenerate cells, etc., your body needs to be in a parasympathetic state, which is essentially when you feel relaxed in a comfortable environment, such as playing video games, chilling with friends, or any other hobby that helps you wind down. Contrast that with the sympathetic state, which is the fight or flight response where you're on edge, nervous, etc. Studies have shown some pretty drastic differences in overall health and well-being based on the amount of time a person can be in a parasympathetic state, because it is way more conducive to cellular repair and therefore optimal function than constantly being in a sympathetic state, as basically everyone in IB is. Add in the fact that you're not getting enough sleep, and you have a deadly combination where even if you don't "feel" it, your body is deteriorating at a rate much faster than normal. In fact, they've found that the nervous system does not do a very good job of telling the difference between physical stress and emotional stress, so when your heart starts racing because you have to finish a deck at 3 AM, that's comparable to suddenly deciding to go outside and run a 100 meter sprint with no warmup, at least to your internal software (i.e. the nervous system). So while many have pointed to the relationship between long hours and not being able to exercise and eat well, that is true to an extent, but it goes a bit deeper. While those are EXTREMELY important and you can't be healthy without them, their benefits will be extremely limited if a huge proportion of your time is spent in this anxious, sympathetic state as opposed to the person who has a 9-5 and has a couple hours at home to relax with their family and get a good night's sleep. So yes, your individual choices matter a lot, the unfortunate truth is that most finance industries are simply harmful to your health no matter what you do, plain and simple. No amount of chicken breast, rice and broccoli will overcome the effects of constant stress on the nervous system. Just some food for thought.
Some of you are kidding yourself if you think this profession does not have long term implications on your health
So does playing in the NFL or any other sport.... people choose to trade the risk (certainty) of health implications for the higher compensation, prestige, etc.
YOU are kidding yourself if you think that anyone has a gun to a person's head and forcing them to work in high finance.
No shit but when people pretend that’s not the case in regards to this profession they are kidding themselves
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