Health

Feeling more relaxed, eat a healthier diet, have more time off, exercise more, and have a better sex life are the top five positive effects of working from home were, according to a survey of 4,100 people.

In contrast, nearly half of American workers worry about their jobs and feel pressure. Almost one in three people say they are “always” or “often” under stress at work and 35 percent are thinking about quitting. Despite the generally improving economy, workers today worry more about money and feel more insecure than ever before—and with good reason: a recent poll conducted by The New York Times revealed that 56 percent of respondents had been laid off once in the last fifteen years, 25 percent had been laid off twice, and a startling 14 percent had been laid off three or more times.

Being laid off, fired or quitting a job results in an increased risk of having a heart attack after age 50, according to a study by Duke University of 13,451 men and women, ages 51 to 75 from 1992 to 2010. The risk is equivalent to smoking, hypertension and diabetes. The risk increases the more times a person loses a job.

Outside of job insecurity, what is the cause of this stress? One recent study found that people cite heavy traffic as the number-one cause of stress in their daily lives. Number two is frustration from interruptions at the office. Another survey indicated that the most frequent work-related stress for women is balancing work and family demands. Working from home reduces or eliminates all these major causes of stress.

Research also indicates that the more control we feel we have over our lives, the less stress we experience. Perhaps that’s the reason the one thing that people most want from a manager is autonomy. Being your own boss is the ultimate in terms of autonomy. Despite working harder and longer hours, most people report their stress level goes down once they are in charge.

Recent medical studies confirm these reports. Despite the hard work and increased productivity involved, working at home produces less stress than working at similar tasks in the office. For example, a woman told us that having the flexibility to adjust her hours and her work pace is relaxing. “It’s almost like magic. I can tailor my work to what I want to do. I can stop and take a TV break and still get more done. I feel great at the end of the day.”

Common office-related stress factors, like fluorescent lights, ringing telephones, clattering equipment, buzzing conversation, and cafeteria junk food are also avoided. A financial consultant explained how the difference has affected him: “When I was commuting to and from work, I had to have a glass of wine when I got home to unwind.” Now that he works from home he rarely has a drink outside social occasions.

Often small things make big differences in reducing stress. Open-collar workers can work in postures that are most comfortable to them. Negative attitudes of co-workers, the gossip, and the office politics that interfere with getting work done, not to mention the frequent meetings that consume a reported 45 percent of managerial and professional time, no longer need to be contended with.

A recent survey of home-business owners and telecommuters found, among other things, that telecommuters do not smoke, drink, or use drugs as much as people who do not work at home. Telecommuters also receive promotions at a greater rate than non-telecommuters.

It’s well established that lower stress means better health. Stress lowers the white blood cell count and the immune system’s resistance to disease. Heart disease and high blood pressure, which affect one in four Americans, are acknowledged to be stress-related diseases. Not only do people working from home experience fewer of the major causes of stress; they also have more time to exercise and more control over what they eat. Better health is one of the greatest benefits of working from home.

If you are seeking a change in your life and want some advice, for an initial free consultation to explore a sustainable livelihood that bests suits your personality and your community, contact us.
[maxbutton id=”1″]

Comments on the substance of the blogs are welcome. If you have other questions, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment.

A University of Nebraska Medical Center study suggests that improving levels of happiness or satisfaction with life also gives rise to better health in the future.

The study indicates as we become happier and more satisfied with life, we tend to become healthier as well. Mohammad Siahpush, Ph.D., professor of health promotion, who led the study reports that those who expressed feeling happy and satisfied with their lives were more likely to have excellent, good or very good health three years later, as well as an absence of long-term and limiting health concerns and a better overall level of physical health.

This isn’t surprising. Even four years ago our President affirmed what so many of us are already knew – we’re facing rough waters and stormy times for years to come. “That we are in the midst of crisis is well understood,” he said. “Our nation is at war … our economy is weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices …. [T]he challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many.” He then called upon us for shared sacrifice.

This has not changed, but does it mean we can expect to be less happy, less satisfied and less healthy in the years ahead? Can sacrifice and satisfaction co-exist in America? That depends on us, doesn’t it?

Certainly if our happiness is tied to comfort, convenience, financial success, and material wealth we can expect some very unhappy and unhealthy folks in the foreseeable future. For nearly a century those are the very things the advertising industry has entrained us to believe are the path to happiness and satisfaction. So in this sense clearly the sacrifices have already begun. A recent article in the New York Times entitled Don’t Indulge. Be Happy cited a study entitled “From wealth to well-being? Money matters, but less than people think” that found that once people have an income of $75,000, income beyond does not lead to an increase in happiness.

We need only scan the news each day to know that’s true. High school sports programs are being cancelled. The number of students accepted for college is down while tuition costs are up and students leave with crippling debt. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are high. Hospitals and retail stores are closing. Millions in retirement funds have been lost. Up to fifteen million jobs have disappeared since 2007. States are running out of funds for unemployment benefits and cutting basic services. People are having to choose between food or fuel or medication. Some are living out of their cars, even in upscale communities like Santa Barbara, CA. Soup kitchens and food pantries are running out of food as the demand is greater from many who were once in the middle class.

Social Security and Medicare are under discussion for cuts to elderly who are already barely covering their costs for food, shelter, and medical care. As Michael Hiltzik wrote the Los Angeles Times, “Income drops sharply with age, presumably because most income sources become exhausted. For two-thirds of all elderly households, Social Security accounts for more than half of all income, and for one-third of those households, it provides 90%.”

For Americans who have been used to decades of prosperity such sacrifices are a bitter pill, especially for those who are already dealing with them. Few of us are feeling happy or satisfied about our current and projected circumstance. But can we feel happy and satisfied in it?

For the most part I’m not seeing a welcoming spirit of sacrifice as of yet. Though there are occasional news reports of workers willing to take pay cuts to prevent co-workers from being laid off, many Americans aren’t ready to accept the sacrifices they’re already coping with, let alone those ahead to which Obama alludes. Instead I see a lot of indignation and misfortune.

Parents furious about 50-student classrooms and cuts in school sports programs.
Students committing suicide over student loan debt.
People being jailed for debt.
Neighbors outraged that people are camping out in cars and RV’s on their neighborhood streets.
Protests about cuts in public services as well as cuts they think should be made.
Workers demanding plants be kept open and benefits kept in place.
ER doctors suing the government for decent reimbursement fees.
Teachers demonstrating for teacher’s pay over testing materials.
Parents unbelieving that they must drive a long distance get their sick child to the hospital.

I believe we’re seeing this general resistance to accept sacrifice when it touches our personal lives for two reasons:

1) a pervasive sense of entitlement on the one hand and
2) a profound sense of injustice on the other.

We’ve grown to expect an unending stream of the latest, best, fastest, most convenient, easy-to-use products and services of a quantity and quality beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined. But, as the reality of our economic and environmental challenges surge onward unabated, our sense of entitlement will inevitably erode. The question is, into what?

As far as a sense of injustice goes, that will be yet harder to accept. As I overheard one retiree comment, “Sacrifice? I’ve already sacrificed. I worked hard for 48 years and I paid out dearly needed income into Social Security and a 401k every one of those years so that I’d have some security. Now that I’m too old and sick from all the stress of working, 40% of my savings have disappeared at the hands of billionaires in failed financial institutions who are getting billions in bonuses that we’re going to have to sacrifice in order to pay for! And now they have the nerve to talk about cutting back our piddly Social Security and Medicare payments !! Give me a break!”

There is no doubt the greed Obama also alluded to has resulted in grave injustice to many middle-class and low income citizens. So, just how readily we will embrace the need to sacrifice and how satisfied we will be with our circumstance may well depend on how fairly distributed the sacrifices are and how evenly the suffering is spread.

But as psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, meaning, and I would say satisfaction and happiness, are not something bestowed upon us. They are something we must find within whatever our circumstances might be.

Do we want to view the years ahead as unsatisfying times of suffering and sacrifice that risk our health and well-being? Or do we want to find meaning in the difficulties we face and draw satisfaction from our efforts to respond to them? It’s up to us.