Deadly days at the workplace

Deadly days at the workplace

The biggest occupational hazard just might be having an occupation--or at least one where you spend too much time in the office.

A new study finds that people who work the longest hours have some of the worst health risks... up to and including death.

No paycheck is worth that.

British researchers looked at 11 years of data from roughly 6,000 civil servants, and found that those who worked 10 or 11 hours each day had a higher risk of serious heart problems.

The researchers said workers who put in an average of three or four hours of overtime a day had a 60 percent increased risk of heart problems, according to the study in the European Heart Journal.

All that overtime can take its toll in other ways, too. The researchers say the overtime workers in this study were more likely to be aggressive or hostile, and showed signs of psychological stress and even sleep disorders.

The researchers also found that men are particularly prone to overwork--they're six times more likely than women to put in at least three extra hours a day. But that doesn't mean the ladies are out of the woods, not by any stretch: Another new study shows how workplace stress can hurt and even kill women.

That study, which looked at more than 12,000 female nurses from Denmark who were between 45 and 64 years old, found that women who felt their workplace stress levels were too high had up to a 50 percent higher risk of ischemic heart disease than those who felt stress levels were manageable.

That fell to a 35 percent increased risk after the researchers adjusted for lifestyle factors, but it's still far too high.

And even a little bit of extra stress could go a long way when it comes to hurting you: Nurses who said they had just a little too much pressure had a 25 percent increase in heart risk.

The takeaway message from all this is to take a close look at your job and what it's doing to you--and not just in your bank account.

While most of us can't change jobs on a whim--heck, many of us are lucky to be working at all at this point--you don't need to put up with any situation at all costs, either.

After all, as the new studies show, those costs may add up to the ultimate price.