Stress at work results in less physical activities during spare time
Persons who experience a great amount of stress at work involve in less physical activities during their spare time. The risk of becoming physically inactive was 20 times higher among those who experience stress at work than among people who did not feel stressed at work, according to a major study by researchers at Mid Sweden University in cooperation with researchers from many other European universities.
There are hypotheses claiming that stressful jobs, characterized by high demands and a low degree of control in the work situation, result in fatigue and a greater need for rest. This way, the likeliness for passivity and sedentism during the spare time would increase.
A major study, recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, contains data from 170 000 persons in 14 European countries. It shows a clear connection between the working situation and the physical activities during the spare time.
- If you have a stressful job, the risk of physical inactivity is above all related to how you experience the control of your own working situation, rather than how high the demands at work are. The less control and possibilities to regulate your work you experience, the more likely you are to be physically inactive during your spare time, says Anders Knutsson, professor of Public Health Science at Mid Sweden University.
Physical inactivity can be related to several illnesses, such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer. An increased amount of physical activities among the population could improve public health. This is why it is important to understand the factors that have an impact on how the population takes part in physical activities.
- Our results indicate that considering factors related to working life would also be beneficial for activities to increase the physical activities of the population, says Anders Knutsson.
The study is a cooperation between Mid Sweden University and several other European universities called IPD-Work Consortium. The aim is to be able to produce reliable estimations of the effect of psycho-social risk factors for the work with different chronic conditions, mental ill-health, disabilities and mortality. This work is based on a great amount of individual data from many studies.
