Stressful Jobs

Do you find your job stressful? If so then a new study has suggested that it could be making you old and sick before your time. Research has shown that some DNA sections which are called telomeres vary in length depending on the stressfulness of your job, with shorter telomeres being linked to the most stressful.

It’s not just physical signs of stress such as a head of grey hair or wrinkles that workers have to worry about though. Shortening of the telomeres can lead to a number of conditions including Parkinson’s, diabetes and cancer. This means a stressful job can link you to illnesses that are more often associated with aging before your time. This highlights the risks that work stress can have on someone’s health and the importance of working in a happy work environment. Factors related both to individual reasons and environmental factors can have an effect on a person’s stress levels and it varies from person to person.

It’s not just work stress that can lead to telomere shortening with other factors such as marital problems, poverty or even early childhood trauma having an effect. One of the main problems with stress is that it breeds more stress and can be hard to beat. Maybe outsourcing some of your work tasks could help to ease workplace stress in your office.