Workaholics vs Working Long Hours How They Separately Affect Your Health After research on people’s work habits, mentalities, and hours, it is clear that there is a difference between simply working a lot and being a workaholic, and it comes down to mentality and coping mechanisms. Both, however, have different effects on your health. Oct 30, 2019 Ask yourself a question: Do you work long hours, but can easily separate personal life from work, or does your work affect your thoughts constantly, long hours or not? Working long hours can differ from being a workaholic, or having a constant compulsion to work. And research shows one is much healthier than the other. Two cases might help make this distinction clearer. Hanna is a finance director at an international home care retailer, and she works long hours. She’s usually in the office from 9am until 5pm, but when her children go to sleep, she’s up working for another four hours. Sometimes she works on weekends. Yet, even though she works 60 to 65 hours per week, she told researchers Lieke ten Brummelhuis and Nancy P. Rothbard from the Harvard Business Review that she can “switch off” when she needs to. She still feels energetic every day, and when she is not working, she is not thinking about work. Michael, the director of strategy for an American insurance company, does not work as much as Hanna—an average of 45 hours per week. However, even though he technically works less, he struggles to unwind from his job—he is constantly checking his email and worrying about work. A few months ago, his doctor noted he had high LDL cholesterol, which raises his risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The doctor prescribed him medicine. Researchers wanted to dig into the assumption that working long hours is bad for our health. While this might have some truth, they wanted to find out if working long hours was negative or if an obsessive work mentality really caused health problems? Here is what previous research shows and how it lines up with the recent study by the Harvard Business Review: Researchers conducted a 2010 study at the Dutch subsidiary of an international financial consulting firm with over 3,500 employees. They asked employees to complete a survey, then sign up for a health screening conducted by medical staff. A total of 763 employees completed both. Let's block ads! (Why?)