People of Northwest Public Radio Shots - Health Blog Thu January
26, 2012 Working Long Hours Can Be Depressing, Truly Putting in
a lot of of overtime can make a person more vulnerable to
depression. You might have guessed that. But now there are some
hard numbers, thanks to a study that tracked the health of civil
service workers in Great Britain. People who worked 11 hours a
day or more than doubled their risk of major depression,
compared to colleagues putting in eight hours a day. Well, who
wouldn't be depressed, trapped in the office all those hours?
But the story's a bit more complicated, and interesting, than
that. Earlier studies have found that people with jobs are less
likely to be depressed, as are people with higher incomes. And
executives often put in long hours in order to pull down those
fat salaries. But this study, which was published online in the
journal PloS One, found that long hours at the office wiped out
the protective effect of income. "Despite the fact that many of
the employees who w