What A Job You Hate Does To Your Health

That Job You Hate Can Take Over Your Life And Relationship

Over three quarters of all people who report that stress affects their working day in a bad way also report that that stress doesn't stop when they go home, the ADAA shares. Are you in a marriage in which one partner spends just 10 hours a week more at work than the average person? Believe it or not, you're twice as likely to get divorced! Before you reach that breaking point where separating might be on the table, your sex life will suffer and you're more likely to argue with your spouse.

Having a stressful relationship, in turn, again impacts your physical health and life expectancy. You see where we're going with this: when a stressful job leads to a stressful relationship, you're stuck in a vicious, downward cycle that can ruin your health and wellbeing.

Your Job Could Be Making You Fat

If you've personally noticed this phenomenon in action, it's not all in your head. About half off all US workers report that they've piled on the pounds since starting their current job, with 28 percent having gained over 10 lbs and 13 percent over 20 lbs. Gaining weight as a result of job-related stress could make you more susceptible to all kinds of physical health problems, of course, ranging from heart disease to diabetes.

One study explains why job-related stress could lead you to put on weight: depressed, anxious workers are more likely to sit on the couch with a tub of ice cream than go out for a run after work, to put it simply.

Work-Related Stress Impacts Sleep, Which Impacts Work Performance

Are deadlines, nasty co-workers, job instability, and worries over your performance keeping you up at night? You're not alone. A lack of sleep influences your mood negatively and lowers your immune system, offering just a partial explanation for the facts that hating your job can make you anxious and depressed and more prone to disease. In addition, when stress eats away at your sleep, your performance at work inevitably suffers, in turn causing yet more stress.

What Now?

The World Health Organization's Global Strategy for Health also states that "every citizen of the world has a right to healthy and safe work and to a work environment that enables him or her to live a socially and economically productive life". Though you may have global bigwigs on your side if you're working in an emotionally toxic environment, though, you're probably going to be on your own in managing it. 

READ Making Working At Home Work For You And Your Health

Ultimately, you can only do two things: attempt to feel more satisfaction in your current job by working on yourself or by trying to influence those things about your job that make you unhappy, or look for a new job in which you will be satisfied.