WLong hours come with a whole series of health problems, from too much stress to disturbed sleep, heart disease and psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression.
It can even cause changes in the brain, according to a new one report Published in Professional and environmental medicine. Researchers from Korea discovered that people who regularly work for long hours had significant brain differences compared to people who worked less.
Wanhyung Lee, from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Chung-Ang University in Seoul, and his team studied 110 health workers of whom some people worked more than 52 hours a week, which forms overtime according to Korean law, and some worked less. All had MRIs with which the scientists could analyze differences in the volume and the concentration of certain brain tissues.
People who were overworked showed changes in 17 brain areas compared to those who worked typical hours. These differences include areas responsible for executive functions such as logical reasoning, as well as managing emotions.
Lee says that the results surprise him – partly because they suggest that the brain changes in response to stress and fear, with some potential negative consequences. “We expected long -term stress to influence the brain structure due to overtime, but finding an increased volume in certain brain areas was somewhat unexpected,” he wrote in an e -mail in time. “Our results suggest a potential neuroadaptive response, which means that the brain can initially try to compensate for increased cognitive and emotional requirements. These surprising findings underline the complexity of how the brain reacts to long -term professional stress.”
Progress in the image of the brain now makes it possible to detect even small volume differences, says Lee. “These technological breakthroughs have enabled researchers to investigate rather invisible biological changes caused by long -term stress or excessive workload, which opened a completely new dimension in research into professional and environmental health.”
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The changes that his team has identified include areas of the brain responsible for things such as memory, decision -making, attention, planning and problem solving. “Changes here can influence a person’s ability to manage tasks efficiently, to make decisions and to maintain concentration,” he says.
Differences in other areas can influence how well people regulate emotions; The changes they saw can indicate less emotional stability, increased fear and problems that interpret emotional signals or manage interpersonal connections.
Would reduce or reverse some of these changes? It is too early to know whether these changes are permanent, says Lee. “Longitudinal studies will be essential to understand whether these structural changes in the brain are reversible or continue to exist in the long term.” He plans to follow this study with data in the longer term and larger populations to determine what happens over time with these brain changes, and whether adjusting workloads can reduce or reverse it.
In the meantime, there are things that people can do to alleviate some of the negative effects of overtime on their health, even if they cannot adjust their hours. Getting enough sleep and physical activity, as well as tackling stress with mindfulness or relaxation techniques, can help. But Lee says that the burden should not be completely on employees. Companies must limit excessive working hours, offer stress management sources and promote the balance between work and private life “to protect the long -term brain health and productivity of their employees.”
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