Working Too Much: Work and Health

By Jim on March 9th, 2005

Interesting thread over at Slashdot about the impact of work on somebody’s health.

I just got a new job where I just sit in one place all day and work for 12 hours at a stretch. This goes on for 4 days a week and I get 3 days off. The journey to and from my office takes up about 3 hours of my day. I am a little worried now cause i am becoming really weak and I am not as healthy as I used to be. I want to ask others on Slashdot about the kinds of weird times in which they work and what they do to take care of their health and stress.

I have to say that the idea of having a long commute would turn me off to a job in a heartbeat. When I was in my 20s, I had to drive from Foxboro into Cambridge. All in all at least an hour depending on the traffic and I ultimately found that to be too much on an ongoing basis. So I moved closer to Cambridge (that was when I worked at zdnet) so I could cut some of that commute time off. It’s just too much on an ongoing basis.

Some kind of exercise is also super helpful in managing stress, ditto with a good diet and regular sleep. I telecommute these days so neither is really a problem for me but I know it’s hard if you have to commute for two hours to fit in exercise.

What do you do to manage your work related stress and your work time?