STRESSED AT WORK? DON’T JUST BRUSH IT OFF
I am representative of the modern woman. I want it all…. Happy marriage, thriving children, and a career that keeps me engaged and stimulated. I have always been a career woman, but it doesn’t mean that my role as a mother is not hugely important to me. There have been many occasions when mothering and being the dynamic career woman have pulled me in different directions. It’s stressful trying to do, be and have it all… and I’m not alone. The women who seek my help in restoring their health frequently complain of the same conflicts. For other women, it is simply the ongoing demands of a high pressured job that potentially cause health problems.
A new study from Denmark confirms what I’ve suspected for a long time. Women who live a life of high career pressure (a role traditionally associated with males) take on the male profile of cardiac disease. The Danish study looked at a group of 12,000 nurses between the ages of 45 and 64, and assessed the impact of their work pressures, and the degree of personal influence or power they had in the workplace. The nurses were tracked for a fifteen year period. The results were hardly surprising, but interesting confirmation that it’s not just stressed out type A business men who pay a price for workplace stress. Those nurses who reported their work pressures to be too high, were 25% more likely to develop heart disease compared with nurses who said work pressures were manageable and appropriate. For those at the top end of the stress scale, who felt overwhelmed by work pressures, there was a 35% increased risk of heart disease.
Premenopausal women under the age of 50 generally have a low incidence of heart disease, due to the cardiovascular protective effects of estrogen. If you’re a younger woman in a stressful work environment, don’t bank on your female hormones protecting your heart from the effects of stress. According to this latest study, you are in a demographic MOST at risk of work stress related heart disease. Nurses under the age of 50, who felt they were under moderate work place stress were a whopping 60% more likely to have heart disease compared with their unstressed peers.
So is it the actual biochemical changes resulting from stress that predispose us to heart disease, or is it the effect that stress has on our lifestyle choices? Most likely it’s a combination of both. Feeling chronically stressed puts you into a “fight or flight” state for much of the day, complete with health damaging biochemical changes. But the truth is that if you’re stressed and exhausted when you get home you’re much less likely to have the energy to exercise or cook yourself a healthy dinner… and a glass or three of wine a night may look just a little too tempting.
If you are interested in finding out proactive ways of optimizing your health, read “Wellbeing”, by Lynda Wharton, published by Harper Collins. Available in book stores, and online at www.lyndawharton.com