Worrying about work out-of-hours 'may be bad for the heart'

Conclusions This research lends support to the theory that people who persistently worry about work may be less relaxed in the evenings compared with those who don't think about work once they've left the office. However, before we conclude too much from this research, there are several limitations to consider: This is a very small, selective sample of 36 people working for a company involved in banking and financial services. They were part of a much larger cohort and were selected for this sub-study because they were identified as being the highest or lowest ruminators, and furthermore had full data available. They may not be representative of this full cohort, or of the wider population in other areas of work. The questionnaire may not be able to comprehensively assess the person's level of stress around work, or to what extent other health or personal circumstances may contribute to stress. Though the heart rate variability of the high ruminators suggested they were less relaxed, we don't actually know what they were worrying about at the time. It may have been nothing to do with work – in other words, the study doesn't prove work is the cause of these observations.  The measures were only taken on three consecutive evenings – we don't know how representative these heart rate measures are of long-term patterns. Although the researchers say previous studies have linked heart rate variability with cardiovascular disease risk, this study doesn't directly...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Mental health Source Type: news