Most Americans are motivated by money and want to achieve the “American dream.” Finding a job is very difficult but finding one you enjoy may be even harder. Many Americans hate their jobs or are completely disengaged. In fact, Gallup conducted a 2013 State of the American Workplace Report where more than 150,000 full and part-time workers were surveyed. According to the report, only 30 percent of workers are fully engaged and nearly 70 PERCENT hate their jobs or they are not engaged in their work. That is a tremendously large number that does not bode well for our society. The reason this is concerning is because people who do not like their jobs can be under a lot stress most of the times which leads to a higher risk in suffering a stroke.

According to recent research, people who have high stress jobs are more likely to suffer from strokes than people that do not have high stress jobs. People were 1.4 times more likely to have a stroke if they encountered psychological stress compared to people that did not. Stress levels are very high among people in the work environment and clearly this needs to be reduced because of the serious effects it may have one people. The study also concluded that about 10 percent of strokes is related to work stress. So where exactly is this information coming from?

Obtained from Google images

The study was conducted by researchers that followed and kept track of participants over the span of 30 years from 1971 to 2001. The participants included a group of roughly 5000 men ages 40 to 59 who lived in Copenhagen, Denmark. The men were given an exam where they were asked about their alcohol consumption, smoking habits, and whether or not they have received treatment for diabetes. Note: people who had a history of heart attacks or a heart disease were not included in the study. The results were astonishing. During the time in which they conducted the study, 779 men suffered from a stroke, and 167 died from one. The men were divided into five groups based on social class which looked at education and job level. Men in the three highest social classes had an increased risk of stroke by 38 percent than the men in the other lower classes. While this number is not very big, it says a lot about how much stress plays a role in risk of strokes. To learn more about how the study was conducted and the results click here.

Another group of researchers looked at six studies where about 140,000 people were involved from ages 18 to 75. The span was from 3 to 17 years and they found that the high stress jobs were 22 percent more likely to cause strokes. Furthermore, this became a lot more dangerous where these jobs were 58 percent more likely to cause ischemic stroke which is the most common type of stoke causing a blockage of blood flow to the brain. And oddly enough, the researchers looked into gender and found that women with high stress jobs were 33 percent more likely to have stroke. The studies show correlations between the stress level and strokes but that does not mean causation is involved. Dr. Yuli Huang of Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China brings up a great point in that “work stress may foster unhealthy behavior such as smoking,, reduced physical activity, lower help-seeking behavior and poor eating habits-all of which are important risk factors for stroke.” So while high stress levels make sense for increasing the risk of stroke, there could be other confounding variables involved.

My take from these studies and research is that this is a very serious problem. Stress is very common in the work place and the statistics correlating high stress levels at work to an increase risk of stroke is very concerning. People should be more aware of this issue and learn about tips to reduce stress. Like I mentioned before these studies show that there is a correlation between stress and risk of stroke but nothing shows that there is a causation involved. There are confounding variables involved, like Dr. Yuli Huang mentioned, but reducing stress levels at work and choosing a job you like will be the first step to reducing the risk of suffering a stroke and potentially saving your life.