Work: Ways to decrease job stress

Last semester, I took a graduate-level class on the Behavioral and Social Aspects of Public Health. For our final, we were to choose a topic of interest and turn in a lit review on related health care interventions.

I began researching occupational stress.

What I found was amazing: Lifestyle-related conditions and stress levels are the greatest enemies to health in Western nations (vs. infectious diseases in underdeveloped regions of the world).

A few items to gnaw on:

• Americans say money, work and the economy are their top stressors


• U.S. workers spend half of their waking hours on the job


• 35% of Americans report experiencing job stress harming physical and emotional health


• Work-related stress, depression and anxiety caused the loss of 13.5 million U.S. working days between 2001 and 2002 [trending upward]

Sources: American Psychological Association [pdf] and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [pdf]