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This article is from the WebMD News Archive
All Work and No Play Is Bad for Your Health
May 5, 2000 (New York) -- We all know at least one: The techie who works 12 hours a day at a dot-com start-up. The lawyer who sweats every last detail of every last contract. The store owner who hasn't taken a vacation in 10 years. The doctor who spends every free moment in the lab. The stockbroker whose heart rate fluctuates with the Nasdaq.
Workaholics come in all shapes and sizes, and the health-related problems associated with work addiction cost an estimated $150 billion per year. Still, 30 years after the term "workaholic" was coined, no clear definition exists.
One thing is clear, though: More research is needed on the physical and psychological effects of work addiction on the worker and his or her family, Bryan E. Robinson, PhD, writes in an article in the Journal of Employment Counseling. Interventions are also needed to recognize work addiction and find ways to deal with it, says Robinson, a professor of counseling, special education, and child development at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
"Workaholism is a very serious problem. It's a compulsive disorder that not only affects the workaholic but also his/her family, and their workplace," Robinson tells WebMD. But rarely have researchers taken a hard scientific look at the human effects of this often-misunderstood issue.
Early research suggests that workaholics are more likely to be depressed, anxious, and angry than their nonworkaholic counterparts. They also tend to have more health complaints.
The chronic stress of constant work can lead to significant physical and mental health problems, Redford B. Williams, MD, tells WebMD. Williams is director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
"They are always trying to succeed, and if they begin to perceive that their rewards, whether pay increase or promotion, are not commensurate with how hard they are trying, they begin to experience high stress and its related health problems," Williams says.
High stress can lead to high blood pressure, which is a risk factor for heart disease and heart attack. In addition, stress takes a toll on the immune system, making workaholics more vulnerable to other illnesses. In Japan, 10,000 workers a year drop dead at their desks as a result of 60- to 70-hour work weeks, a phenomenon known as karoshi.
But it's not just the workaholics who are affected. Their spouses often report feeling ignored and resort to attention-seeking measures to get their partners to notice them, while children often report being resentful of a workaholic parent, Robinson explains. "Children are affected by parental work addiction in ways that are mentally unhealthy and can cause problems well into young adulthood," he writes.
In a soon-to-be-published study of 1,000 women, Robinson found that those who were married to workaholics had higher divorce rates, greater rates of marital estrangement, fewer positive feelings about their marriage, and felt less in control of their lives and marriages. The study is to appear later this year in the American Journal of Family Therapy.
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