Dying for a job in IT?

Study finds techies are putting their health at risk

VNU Business Publications, 12 Jul 2002

If there's one thing that defines a person working in computers more than anything it is long working days.

If there's an upgrade to do, downtime to be minimised, urgent fault resolution or just a simple project that needs to be completed, you can almost guarantee that IT staff will be working until the early hours to ensure that it gets done.

And that means clocking up long hours, early starts, late finishes. But none of it is good for the health.

A study published this week in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal claimed to have found a direct link between working long hours and having a heart attack.

It said that people working 60 hours or more a week, and sleeping five hours or less twice a week, can more than double or even treble their chances of a heart attack.

Worried? You should be. The study goes on to talk about stress. That includes anything from tight deadlines and resource problems, to that PC in human resources which is constantly on the blink.

And, as you might have already guessed, it only adds to the danger of an early heart attack.

A lack of sleep can cause your blood pressure to go through the roof, while a lot of stress will do the same and potentially cause your heart to malfunction.

The study, undertaken by Suminori Kono of the Kyushu University in Japan, and David Snashall of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, looked at 260 men aged between 40 and 79 who had survived a first heart attack.

These were compared with 445 men of similar profiles with no history of a heart attack. The results were as plain as the nose on your face. Those individuals that had suffered a heart attack worked long hours in stressful jobs, and rarely got enough sleep.

That's the cheery news for the day anyway. Digest it. Mull it over. And then do something about it.

The doctors involved in the study said that, in order to avoid these problems, you should work no more than 40 hours a week, and you should get plenty of sleep.

It's easier said than done, of course. But keep trying. Death is somewhat over-hyped.