This is why your stressful job could actually make you live longer

Sorry - what?

Words by Jadie Troy-Pryde

We really don't need to tell you how much stress at work can affect your health. Whether you're working in one of the 17 jobs that are most likely to leave you depressed, or it's actually making you ill - there's no denying that the workplace can take a toll on our physical and mental wellbeing.

But what if high-pressure jobs could actually be making us live longer? That's what one study has concluded...

Research from Indiana University found that those of us in stressful jobs are approximately a third less likely to die than our less stressed counterparts. Yes, really. However, this does depend on whether or not you can control your own workload. If you do have that privilege, then you can expect to find yourself in the segment of pressured workers who will live longer.

The study required thousands of employees in their 60s to answer questions about their work life, and the results showed that those who were able to control their stressful workload were 34% less likely to have died.

However - if you are in a stressful job and you don't have control over your workload, the results might not be so easy on the ear. According to the team at Indiana University, this group of participants were more likely to be unhealthy and therefore die sooner. Sorry.

Erik Gonazlez-Mule who led the study, said: 'These findings suggest that stressful jobs have clear negative consequences for employee health when paired with low freedom in decision making, while stressful jobs can actually be beneficial to employee health if also paired with freedom in decision making.

'When you don't have the necessary resources to deal with a demanding job, you do this other stuff. You might eat more, you might smoke, you might engage in some of these things to cope with it.'

So if you're being micro-managed to peak stress level at your current role, it might be time to take a look at the top jobs in the UK according to LinkedIn...

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