We’ve all had times when we know we should we working less and enjoying life more. But if your job puts you under chronic stress and you’re spending long hours at your desk, there could be a long-term impact on your brain.
According to new research, spending more than 52 hours a week at work could impact your brain as it tries to meet the increased demands. The study – published in the journal Occupational And Environmental Medicine – suggests that working very long hours could even change the shape of the brain as it attempts to cope. This could lead to ‘fatigue, emotional instability or reduced cognitive efficiency in the longer term’, say the team of Korean researchers who worked on the study.
‘The pressure of these demands on the body will lead to increased cortisol and adrenaline in the body,’ says specialist therapist Fiona Vigar. ‘These are useful hormones in short bursts, after which we’re designed to rest. But our nervous systems simply aren’t evolved to have elevated levels of stress hormones for extended periods, so health is more likely to suffer.’
While some ‘good’ stress is helpful, says Fiona, there are other types that impact our physical and mental health. If you’re working for weeks on a difficult or demanding project, for example, your nervous system can struggle to relax, which can impact sleep and make you feel anxious, irritable and joyless. ‘You may feel physical effects such as headaches, high blood pressure or panic attacks. Ongoing stress without respite, such as being a carer for a loved one, can cause more severe health impacts as the body gets exhausted by the strain.’
The study found that people working long hours might initially see a short-term benefit from increased volume in parts of the brain that govern alertness or efficiency. But as this turns into ‘chronic’ stress over time, this can have a more severe effect on the body, contributing to high blood pressure and the formation of artery-clogging deposits, and linked to anxiety, depression and addiction.
Fiona's three pieces of advice
* Turn off phone notifications. Each time you receive a ‘ping’, your body will experience a jolt of cortisol.
* Journal. If you struggle to calm the mind at the end of the day, or even overnight, write down your thoughts, ideas and feelings. Don’t worry about whether it makes sense, or if the writing is neat – just scrawl on to the paper. It helps the brain to let go and to intercept repeating thoughts, helping it move into a rest state.
* Take off your shoes and breathe. Find a quiet space, get outside and take off your shoes to feel the ground. Focus on your feet and really feel them; move and spread the toes before letting them settle. Put your hands on your heart and breathe in through the nose for a slow count of five, then out for five. Repeat this, imagining the breath coming into your heart space, for six breaths. Breathing like this calms the heart rate, which calms the brain, moving it into the parasympathetic or rest and restore state. Repeating the exercise during long periods of being busy will give your nervous system respite from the fight/flight state.
