Is the work dangerous? Working from home and the dangers associated with it

Working in an office is considered relatively safe - at least compared to cleaning windows on the 44th floor of a skyscraper.

But still, everyday office work can be harmful to health: for example, sitting at a computer for a long time causes neuromuscular disorder, and communicating with a grumpy boss leads to stress. Business Insider identified 16 reasons why working in an office can take a toll on your well-being over time.

16 reasons office work is bad for your health

Inactivity shortens life

Sitting in one place for a long time is very harmful. And body pain is just a small part possible problems, because a sedentary lifestyle shortens your lifespan. It also increases your chances of getting musculoskeletal diseases, heart problems, diabetes, cancer, obesity and other problems, even if you exercise regularly.

Approximately 86% of American workers sit at work all day. If you also lead this lifestyle, try to move for at least a few minutes every hour.

Pay attention to how you sit - slouched or upright.

• To begin, sit on the edge of a chair (no need to lean back). Take a hunched position.
• Now try to sit up straight, straighten your back as much as possible. Stay in this position for a few seconds.
• Loosen the position a little. But you shouldn’t bend more than 10 degrees. This is how you should sit.

Using a desk with a treadmill increases your chances of injury

Treadmill desks help prevent obesity and heart disease, which is why treadmill desks have been very popular for a while. But in 2013, the Wall Street Journal reported that their owners often fall.

If you have to travel more than 10 miles to get to work, remember that traveling that long can cause your cholesterol and blood sugar levels to rise. In addition, the risk of depression and stress increases.

Public transport is no better. One study found that people who commute more than 30 minutes by bus have significantly lower levels of life satisfaction than others. Moreover, even those who ride a bicycle to work are not immune from such a negative impact.

Another recent study reports that most people are unaware of how miserable commuting to and from work makes us. Think about this the next time you're looking for a new job.

Lack of fresh air leads to illness and reduces productivity

At the Security Agency environment There is a special term “unhealthy building syndrome”, which means “an unpleasant condition that people experience when they spend a long time in a building, in the absence of any diseases or other reasons.”

At the same time, one study showed that employees who work in “green” spaces - that is, in buildings with good ventilation and low levels of air pollution - exhibit better intellectual performance than those who work in “typical” offices.

If you work more than 55 hours a week, you risk apoplexy

Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Tired and irritated eyes after sitting in front of a monitor for a long time are a sign of “computer vision syndrome.” According to research, this syndrome occurs in more than 60% of Americans.

To prevent your eyes from getting tired, use the 20-20-6 rule: after every 20 minutes of work, look for 20 seconds at some object located at a distance of 6 meters.

Your eyes have muscles that help them move and focus on different objects. But if you spend hours looking at a screen, that is, at an object that is constantly at the same distance, these muscles weaken and have a hard time adjusting properly when we move our gaze.

Lack of sunlight leads to insomnia and poor concentration

Artificial lighting doesn't just make your skin look unhealthy. It negatively affects your body clock, causing you to become sleepy and inactive.

This is not an exaggeration - you can really die from boredom.

Researchers at University College London believe that those who complain of boredom are more likely to die young. And those who spend a lot of time in tedious monotony risk dying from heart disease or stroke.

Scientists are quick to assure that boredom is not a direct cause of fatal diseases. However, a monotonous lifestyle often leads to bad habits, including drug use.

Offices and keyboards are breeding grounds for germs

If you don't keep your office clean, it will turn into fertile soil for harmful bacteria.

Scientists from the University of Arizona conducted an interesting experiment: they placed a virus in a building (which cannot be infected by people) and tracked its path through the office.

In just two hours, the virus entered the kitchen - on the coffee pot, the microwave button, the refrigerator door handle - and then penetrated into the toilets, private offices and workplaces. The researchers then discovered that virus particles densely covered phones, desks and computers.

After four hours, the virus could be found on more than 50% of all frequently touched surfaces and on the hands of almost half of the office employees.

Experts doubt that disinfectants can help in this situation, because they also destroy beneficial bacteria. How to stop the spread of germs? Perhaps we should give up shaking hands.

Open spaces are fashionable, but harmful

Almost 70% of all American offices have abandoned the office system in favor of open space. This office space may have a positive effect on teamwork and communication, but at the same time it has a negative impact on health.

If your mouse stays in the same place all day, you may develop chronic neuromuscular disorder (RSI).

These injuries occur when the tendons in the hand are strained for too long due to repetitive movements, prolonged awkward hand positioning, and constant pressure on a hard surface.

To avoid them, use a special wrist rest or get a smaller keyboard so that you have to move your hand less often.

Frequent use of a smartphone can cause your thumb to become inflamed.

Those who very often use a smartphone for texting can damage their thumbs, because they are the ones most often used to type text.

Therapist medical center The Philadelphia Hand Center believes that excessive phone use can lead to finger inflammation and cause pain, cramps, aches and even osteoarthritis. The best way Treatment for this condition is rest and ice.

Uncomfortable shoes can cause back pain, muscle cramps and chronic headaches

Perhaps on high heels You look taller and more confident, but they are surprisingly harmful to your body.

Between 2005 and 2009, the number of women visiting orthopedists increased by 75%.

Overworking, hard work can cause deterioration in your health. For example, hypertension is a frequent companion of both those who work hard in factories and those who stay up late doing business in the office until dark.

Recycling is harmful!

Scientists have long proven that workaholics get sick much more often than their less diligent colleagues. They often have heart attacks, and the risk of injury is also higher than others. Women who linger at their workplace until dark usually do not eat normally, but snack quickly, smoke excessively, and pay less attention to sports and their health than others.

By the way, even if the processing time per week is only a few hours, it still has a negative effect on the body. Researchers at the University of California Irvine concluded that men and women who work 41-50 hours a week are 14% more likely to suffer from high blood pressure than workers who work no more than 40 hours a week. If more than 51 hours are devoted to work per week, then, accordingly, the risk of developing this disease is already 29%.

Alternate work and rest

Thanks to scientists, an interesting pattern has emerged: even complex intellectual duties associated with considerable mental stress can protect against hypertension, provided that the employee can actively influence his working conditions. To improve your health, as well as to maintain physical fitness, active rest is recommended, for example, cycling or a light jog in the evening.

Scientists from Holland have proven the negative impact of working night shifts on the condition and functions of the cardiovascular system. The research results are clear: those who work at night are twice as likely to suffer from tachycardia. And tachycardia in the future can cause heart attacks or even sudden death.

Industrial hazards

Heavy physical exercise at work over time lead to occupational diseases of the musculoskeletal system, bones and muscles suffer. If an employee, due to his occupation, regularly has to inhale harmful substances, then the risk of developing, for example, asthma or another upper respiratory tract disease increases significantly. Electromagnetic fields, various noises and vibrations will also not add to a person’s health.

Occupational disease usually occurs due to unsatisfactory working conditions in which the employee is regularly exposed. If it is proven that you have an occupational disease, then the organization in which you work must pay you compensation on a monthly basis. Sometimes such payments even amount to 100% of wages. You are also entitled to additional vacation, medications at the expense of your company, a trip to a sanatorium every year, as well as other measures aimed at rehabilitating your health condition.

It is no secret, however, that work associated with mental stress is no less harmful than work in industrial enterprises. So, if half of the working day is spent in front of a computer monitor, such work is assigned the category “harmful”. The cause of vision deterioration, neuralgia, and other diseases can be a long stay at the monitor. This kind of work is generally not recommended for pregnant women and nursing mothers, so they have the right to demand a transfer to another position.

If the harmfulness of work lies precisely in a long stay near a computer monitor, the employer is obliged to submit lists of employees to Rospotrebnadzor and discuss regular scheduled medical examinations with sanitary doctors.

5 dangers of the office

Danger No. 1 – monitor

Keep in mind: working on a computer on a daily basis damages your eyesight. Those who already have poor vision are advised to wear special glasses for working in front of a monitor screen. Their special coating protects the eyes and reduces the negative effect of the monitor on vision. It is also advisable to perform certain eye exercises throughout the working day.

Danger No. 2 – air conditioning

In summer there is coolness, in winter there are hot air currents. This device causes the skin to dry out, literally dehydrating it. Therefore, it is recommended to lubricate your hands with moisturizer at least twice a day and restore makeup at least once. Conditioned air is also harmful to sufferers bronchial asthma and other diseases respiratory system. In addition, “under air conditioning” it is very easy to develop colds.

Danger No. 3 – hard stool

Sitting on a hard chair negatively affects your posture, and working in a sitting position generally has a negative impact on your overall health. Therefore, if you feel like it, be sure to stretch - this will make your muscles stronger. You can also solve the problem of sedentary work with lunch walks. It would be a good idea to refuse the elevator service. Periodically throughout the working day you need to do short (literally a couple of minutes) physical relaxation for the muscles. You need to get up and do a few simple exercises, at your discretion.

Danger No. 4 – a picky employer and an irregular schedule

Because of these two reasons, you have to worry endlessly. You work from early morning until late evening, trying to achieve unattainable heights. However, often the result of such efforts is only breakdown and broken family life. Finally, understand: the result is important, but no one will pay you money for excessive zeal! You don’t need to do something that no one asks you to do and that, in fact, is not particularly important, but takes a lot of time.

Danger No. 5 – heels

The result of constantly wearing heels is damaged veins. Of course, it’s impossible to completely give up branded stilettos, so let’s solve this situation in a different way: wear replacement shoes at work or take off your shoes under the table and move your toes.

24.07.2017 1 498 4 Reading time: 13 min.

Today I will raise a very important topic: work and health hazards. Moreover, I will not consider various types of dangerous professions (the fact that they are dangerous and harmful to health is already clear), but I will consider the most ordinary work, which is not officially considered harmful, well, let’s say, office work, as the most common option . So, why and how work is harmful to health, as well as how you can reduce this negative impact - you will find out by reading this article.

Before writing it, I looked at data from various studies conducted by doctors, where they competently and more competently describe what many, I think, understand anyway. That is, based on scientific medical observations that prove that work is indeed harmful to health. So what is this harm?

First of all, it should be noted that harm to health from work can be in two directions:

1. Harm to physical health.
2. Harm to psychological health.

Both of these areas are equally important and equally harmful, if you like. If someone thinks that physical health is more important than psychological health, I think he is mistaken. If only because it is very strongly interconnected: psychological trauma, as a rule, also gives rise to physical illnesses, and often very serious ones. So, you definitely shouldn’t neglect this direction.

So, what are the dangers and health hazards associated with traditional office work? Let's look at the most common options.

The harm of sedentary work. Nature dictates that a person should either stand or lie down. A sitting position is unnatural for him, and constant long-term stay in it inevitably leads to health problems. And we are talking here not only about a sore back, although it is about that too. Sedentary work also threatens to weaken muscles, gain excess weight, and can cause diabetes, serious heart disease and even cancer.

What to do: Try to take as many breaks as possible from work, get up, walk more often, even do a little warm-up if possible.

Power interruptions and food quality. Because of work, many people violate their usual eating schedule: they eat food chaotically, “when necessary,” and not always. Also, instead of healthy homemade food, they eat all kinds of fast foods and semi-finished products. All this is stressful for gastrointestinal tract, and gradually leads to metabolic disorders, which, in turn, can cause hypertension, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases.

What to do: Try as much as possible not to violate the established diet, take home-made food with you for lunch. By the way, this is good not only for health, but also for personal finances.

Long journey to and from work in transport. Scientists have determined that if a person travels 15 km or more to and from work every day, this can cause an increase in blood sugar and cholesterol, the development of insomnia and depression, increased anxiety, and a decrease in general level life satisfaction. Moreover, regardless of whether a person travels in a personal car or public transport, the only difference is a greater tendency to certain health problems.

What to do: Try to look for a job that is as close to home as possible, ideally within a 5 km radius.

Closed room. Indoor air is often much more harmful to humans than outside, due to poor circulation and the many harmful particles emitted by working office equipment. Dirt that stagnates in air conditioners through which air passes, an excess of positive ions released during operation of equipment, toxic materials (for example, contained in printer ink, copier powder), mold in poorly treated rooms, bacteria exhaled by patients are very dangerous for humans. people, etc. Therefore, constantly being at work indoors leads to the development of diseases of the lungs and respiratory system.

What to do: Ventilate the work area as thoroughly and often as possible, and also compensate for such work by spending a long time in healthy air: in parks, mountains, near water bodies, after a thunderstorm.

Working at a monitor for a long time. Staying at a monitor for a long time and eye strain has a detrimental effect on vision and can also cause frequent headaches and migraines.

What to do: Avoid overstraining your eyes while working; to do this, take pauses, breaks, during which you look out the window, without focusing on anything, so that your eyes rest.

Lack of sunlight. If you work in a room that does not receive sunlight, or too little of it, that is, the lighting is predominantly artificial, this threatens not only a decrease in daytime, but also a deterioration in sleep.

What to do: choose to work in bright rooms with large windows.

Pathogenic microbes. Close contact with other people, shaking hands, using shared equipment, door and furniture handles - all this is an environment in which a huge number of microorganisms live. Among them there are those that can cause harm to health. I’m already silent about diseases spread by airborne droplets: if one sick employee or visitor appears in the office, this creates a serious threat of illness for everyone else.

What to do: Pay increased attention to personal hygiene at work: wash your hands often, keep your work area clean.

Walking in heels. If the work dress code for women requires heels, then constantly wearing them also entails many problems. Heels add beauty and self-confidence, but they are also harmful to health. Constantly wearing heels can cause problems with the spine, muscle spasms, headaches, migraines.

What to do: Choose a job where you can wear comfortable shoes; if you wear heels, then at least minimal ones.

Work over 10 hours a day. Medical studies have shown that people who spend 10 hours a day or more at work have a 60% increased risk of heart attack and other serious cardiovascular diseases.

What to do: Don’t recycle, take care of your health!

Working after hours. Any processing also causes physical and psychological stress in the human body. Also, according to research, people who work in the evening and at night (for example, IT specialists) are at increased risk for developing diabetes mellitus, cancer, heart disease. In addition, such work often leads to obesity.

What to do: Work no more than traditionally and during daylight hours.

Excessive motivation. V Lately have become an integral part of the work process in almost every enterprise. Employers often try to literally force every employee to imbue and live the “bright mission” of the company. Intensified efforts to artificially evoke positive emotions where consciousness rejects them have a very negative impact on the psyche and can lead to serious mental disorders. Such employees experience severe psychological discomfort and become depressed.

What to do: Try to separate. And you should strive to do the work itself with high quality, following the company’s strategy, but without emotions - this is not an area in which you need to immerse yourself emotionally (the exception is various types of creative work).

The boss is a tyrant. Poor relationships with your boss or even work colleagues, especially if it continues chronically, can cause a whole bunch of diseases: poor sleep, depression, excess weight, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases.

What to do: No boss, no job is worth your health. If you cannot establish normal working relationships with your superiors, you need to change jobs.

All of the above examples (I repeat, these are not fictions, but scientific research) allow us to draw an unambiguous conclusion that work is harmful to health. Only this harm in different cases can be of varying degrees of severity. Unfortunately, in last years There is a visible tendency towards a deterioration in working conditions, primarily psychological, which has a detrimental effect on the health of workers.

PHOTO Getty Images

The working day is over, we can go home - but work follows us. In the evenings, on weekends, on vacation, she looms somewhere nearby and is always ready to burst into our lives through mobile phone, email or Skype. Of course, these are the demands of today, but how does such constant inclusion and availability affect us?

A study on this topic was carried out by Jan Dettmers and his colleagues from the University of Hamburg 1. They suggested that the lack of a clear separation of work and free time should have a negative impact on well-being, since constant stress prevents the worker from recovering both physically and psychologically. The participants in the study were employees who on some days, due to work, had to be “in the access zone” all the time, and on other days, at their leisure, they could be completely their own.

During the experiment, 132 people (most of them men) from 13 companies of various profiles, from IT to transport, at the request of the researchers, wrote entries in a diary every morning, describing their psychological state. As it turns out, after a day of being on call, they felt tired, stressed, and generally out of sorts.

What is most interesting is that this condition was not associated with the number of calls received in free time, their duration or the complexity of the issues discussed.
It seems that the matter was different: the very anticipation of a possible call and, as a result, the feeling that they had lost control over their free time, practically “ate up” all the bonuses from the vacation.

In addition, cortisol levels were measured in 51 participants. This is a hormone that is a marker of stress. Its level rises sharply upon awakening, this is a kind of preparation for the expected stressful situations of the coming day. The higher the level, the greater the expectation of stress. It was measured using saliva samples. Immediately after waking up, after 15 minutes and after half an hour, the participant was required to chew a cotton ball and then place it in the refrigerator. The results of the tests revealed that the level of cortisol upon awakening was higher the morning after a day spent “on call.”

Previous studies by American psychologists Youngah Park, Charlotte Fritz and Steve Jex have already shown that business contacts in free time prevent a person from relaxing and disconnecting from professional concerns 2. Now it turns out that even waiting for a “business” call in your free time can increase stress. In fact, it would be incorrect to consider this time as non-working time, say the study authors.

In the organizations that participated in the experiment of German psychologists, the days when the employee should be on call were specified in advance in the contract. But there are many companies where such a connection is not specified, but is taken for granted. It's even harder for their employees. The more work interferes with their non-work time, the less control they feel over their free time.

However, it would be wrong to blame only new technologies for this situation. It largely depends on ourselves how much we can switch from work to leisure, emphasize Yonga Park and her co-authors. For example, they advise creating a ritual for ending the workday, as well as setting clearer boundaries in communication with your colleagues.

1 J. Dettmers et al. "Extended work availability and its relation with start-of-day mood and cortisol." Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, August 2015.

2 Y. Park, C. Fritz, S. Jex “Relationships between work-home segmentation and psychological detachment from work: The role of communication technology use at home.” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2011, vol. 16(4).

It is believed that critical “workaholism” begins after 50 hours of work per week. Due to overexertion, problems with sleep may also appear, even without taking into account chronic lack of sleep during overwork, this leads to even greater fatigue.

Alcoholism

In 2015, an international team of scientists conducted the largest ever study of the relationship between alcohol abuse and long working hours. Scientists summarized data from 61 studies on more than 330 thousand people from 14 countries.

Exceeding working hours leads to depression, stress and sleep problems, and workaholics often relieve these effects by drinking alcoholic beverages.

If working hours are 49-54 hours a week, the risk of developing severe alcohol dependence increases by 13%, researchers warn.

This effect is more pronounced in men than in women, and it does not depend on geography or social and economic status.

Inadequate working hours, in addition to alcohol abuse and stress, often lead to sedentary lifestyle life, and as a result, to problems with weight and joints.

What to do if you have to work a lot

The nervous system requires regular rest, this is due to the need to accumulate a certain amount of specific substances - neurotransmitters - in the nervous tissue. Fatigue tends to accumulate; every hour, every minute of such overtime work needs compensation, reminds neurologist Alexey Mishechkin.

If circumstances require, follow at least a few simple rules:

• Every hour, take a break for 5-10 minutes, during which you do not sit still, be sure to get up, move around, if possible - go out into the fresh air and natural light.
• If you feel very tired, allow yourself to take a short nap, even right at your desk.
• If possible, use gadgets and TV as little as possible during non-working hours.
• Avoid energy drinks, strong tea and coffee, fatty foods, drink more clean water, try not to smoke.
• In the evening, be sure to take a walk, do relaxation exercises, and meditative practices will help you recover after a difficult day.