Something new to worry about.....

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Bored to Death?

Boring jobs can kill you. At least that's the claim

of a team of researchers from the University of

Texas School of Public Health.

The researchers found that workers who spent their

lives in undemanding jobs with little control

over their work were 35 percent more likely to die

during a 10-year period than workers in

challenging jobs with lots of decision-making

responsibilities, after controlling for other relevant

factors, including age, overall health, income,

race and gender. The team's findings were reported in

the latest issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Professor C. Amick III and his research

team analyzed data collected annually by the

University of Michigan, based on surveys from about

7,500 individuals. Participants had been

employed for a minimum of three years during

the1968-91 study period.

These workers were divided into four categories

based on their answers to questions that measured

how much latitude they had to decide what work to

do and how to do it, the psychological demands

their job placed on them and other " psychosocial "

factors. On one extreme were low-stress jobs

with little decision-making responsibilities --

typically jobs such as maintenance worker or

housekeeper that " are largely lacking in meaningful

content, " Amick said.

At the other extreme were jobs with lots of demands

and lots of freedom to make decisions, such as

high-stress managerial positions -- precisely the

kind of jobs that people typically think can shorten

your life span.

Well, apparently, those high-pressure, high-control

jobs don't kill you -- or at least not as quickly as

boring jobs, these findings suggest.

" This alienating work could result in social

disengagement and/or adopting of high-risk behaviors

that lead to a higher risk of death, " such as

eating, drinking or smoking too much, Amick wrote. " In

addition to the amount of job control a person has

during a working life, the meaningfulness of

work may be an important contributor [to the risk

of dying]. "