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Your Boss May Be Working You to Death
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Dr. Patricia A. Farrell
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, NJ: The Japanese have a word for it, karoshi (???). It means, literally, being worked to death by your employer. It's been a legal reason for lawsuits in Japan since the 1990s. The first case noted of karoshi was of the death of a married worker in a major newspaper in 1969. Stress does kill and the Japanese were among the first to admit this in damage suits brought by grieving widows of what is termed "salarymen." Not only did they overwork, a number of them took their lives in order to escape from the grinding stress they were submitted to day after day. The primary causes of death, however, were heart attack and stroke. Now, in a strange twist, there's a computer game by this name.
Case reports indicate that workers often had to work an average of five hours overtime each day, often slept in their offices, could not meet new preset goals of the company, some worked 11 hours on holidays and, eventually, there were suicides as a result of these demands. Overtime was seen, by the company, as voluntary and, therefore, not covered by the compensation package. It reminded me of the "voluntary" overtime in a major Florida food chain where workers had to stay to clean up the store each day. In 2007, a major Japanese car manufacturer was sued for the death of a 30-year-old man who worked 80 hours of overtime a month and 114 hours overtime for the month before he died. One report indicated that 2,200 Japanese killed themselves in 2007 because of their working conditions.
The cases of being overworked to death or committing suicide as a result of work-related stress are not limited to office workers or to Japan. Anyone, in any country in the industrialized world, in any profession can be a victim of death by stress. Consider nurses and physicians in ERs, medical residents, police and firefighters, over-the-road truckers, airline pilots, military personnel, factory workers and all those people who hold not two but three and four jobs.
How does stress hurt you? Let's look at some of the things it does:
1. Causes stress hormones to constantly pour into your blood
2. Changes the action of your GI tract
3. Can bring on sleep/appetite disturbances
4. Increases the likelihood of depression, anxiety disorders
5. May change the character of your blood to thicken it, which can cause clots and stroke
What can you do about it, if it's not of your choosing? If you work in the U.S. and you and your physician decide you are suffering from work-related stress that is debilitating, you have a right to file for both temporary and long-term disability benefits. These benefits are not handouts; you paid into this insurance plan by your hard work.
If the work-related stress is within your control, consider lifestyle changes such as:
1. Limiting your hours at the office and increasing the time spent in enjoyable activities
2. Insuring that you get enough sleep each night. Sleep is not a luxury, it's mandatory for your physical and mental health. Don't get enough sleep and you run serious risks.
3. Watch your weight and put a little exercise into each day. Walk in place, lift a light dumb bell a few times a day, walk up and down stairs when you can.
4. Take the opportunity to laugh as much as is humanly possible. Make it a rule to laugh out loud at least two to three times a week and keep to it.
See what you can do for you because, when it comes right down to it, you are not as helpless as you may think. Take a look at my Self-help http://www.drfarrell.net/SELF%20HELP.htm) and Stress http://www.drfarrell.net/STRESS.htm) pages on my website.
http://www.drfarrell.net
REFERENCES:
http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/1415/Japan%27s+workplace+fatalities+down+but+Karoshi+deaths+rising
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/toyota-worker-dies-from-overwork/
http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/working-yourself-to-death-20090518-b9jl.html
http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=628&catid=18&subcatid=118
World Health Organization: http://www.workhealth.org/whatsnew/lpkarosh.html
http://www.pacificbridge.com/asianews.asp?id=155
http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/workaholism
Case reports indicate that workers often had to work an average of five hours overtime each day, often slept in their offices, could not meet new preset goals of the company, some worked 11 hours on holidays and, eventually, there were suicides as a result of these demands. Overtime was seen, by the company, as voluntary and, therefore, not covered by the compensation package. It reminded me of the "voluntary" overtime in a major Florida food chain where workers had to stay to clean up the store each day. In 2007, a major Japanese car manufacturer was sued for the death of a 30-year-old man who worked 80 hours of overtime a month and 114 hours overtime for the month before he died. One report indicated that 2,200 Japanese killed themselves in 2007 because of their working conditions.
The cases of being overworked to death or committing suicide as a result of work-related stress are not limited to office workers or to Japan. Anyone, in any country in the industrialized world, in any profession can be a victim of death by stress. Consider nurses and physicians in ERs, medical residents, police and firefighters, over-the-road truckers, airline pilots, military personnel, factory workers and all those people who hold not two but three and four jobs.
How does stress hurt you? Let's look at some of the things it does:
1. Causes stress hormones to constantly pour into your blood
2. Changes the action of your GI tract
3. Can bring on sleep/appetite disturbances
4. Increases the likelihood of depression, anxiety disorders
5. May change the character of your blood to thicken it, which can cause clots and stroke
What can you do about it, if it's not of your choosing? If you work in the U.S. and you and your physician decide you are suffering from work-related stress that is debilitating, you have a right to file for both temporary and long-term disability benefits. These benefits are not handouts; you paid into this insurance plan by your hard work.
If the work-related stress is within your control, consider lifestyle changes such as:
1. Limiting your hours at the office and increasing the time spent in enjoyable activities
2. Insuring that you get enough sleep each night. Sleep is not a luxury, it's mandatory for your physical and mental health. Don't get enough sleep and you run serious risks.
3. Watch your weight and put a little exercise into each day. Walk in place, lift a light dumb bell a few times a day, walk up and down stairs when you can.
4. Take the opportunity to laugh as much as is humanly possible. Make it a rule to laugh out loud at least two to three times a week and keep to it.
See what you can do for you because, when it comes right down to it, you are not as helpless as you may think. Take a look at my Self-help http://www.drfarrell.net/SELF%20HELP.htm) and Stress http://www.drfarrell.net/STRESS.htm) pages on my website.
http://www.drfarrell.net
REFERENCES:
http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/1415/Japan%27s+workplace+fatalities+down+but+Karoshi+deaths+rising
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/toyota-worker-dies-from-overwork/
http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/working-yourself-to-death-20090518-b9jl.html
http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=628&catid=18&subcatid=118
World Health Organization: http://www.workhealth.org/whatsnew/lpkarosh.html
http://www.pacificbridge.com/asianews.asp?id=155
http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/workaholism
Patricia A. Farrell, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Patricia A. Farrell, Ph.D., LLC
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
201-646-0478
