Your Job and Your Health

As you might imagine, your health is definitely influenced by your job. In today's economy there are some new factors which are affecting our health that may not have been an issue before. These factors not only influence your health, but how long you will live.

The factors around work that influence your health these days are things like, do you still have a job, how secure are you in your job, and how much do you enjoy your work. These are factors which may have a huge impact on your health and longevity, perhaps more than if you are on the right diet to lose weight.

One of the most devastating factors above to our health is the loss of our job. In Finland, after a major layoff occurred, the risk of death from heart attack went up fivefold for those losing their jobs. In the USA, studies are currently being done to look at this, but some of the preliminary results show that people who lost their jobs in their 50s were twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke within the next 10 years.

A study in Michigan has shown that job insecurity can be as bad for health as a bout with a serious illness and worse than an actual job loss. Part of this boils down to you feeling valuable in your job.

#6 Healthy Habit

Yesterday I spoke about friends and how that helps keep your brain healthy. The next healthy habit is to do things that keep your brain functioning at a high level. Remember to exercise your mind with things like crossword puzzles, etc. It's the use it or lose it principle. You don't want to live to 100 if you don't know who is sitting next to you or where you are.

I have a 105 year old woman who is one of my patients. She is absolutely as sharp as they come. She actually knows more about current events than I do. Maybe that isn't saying a whole lot since I'm only in touch with what people tell me. This woman reads the paper cover to cover every day. When the election campaigns were happening, she knew which states voted for which candidates. She is very sharp, because she uses her brain every day and keeps it functioning at a high level.

#4 Healthy Habit

The importance of family was demonstrated in a study of centenarians in the US. People who had a brother or sister who lived to be 100 were more likely to live to be 100 than others who were born in the same year. There is longevity in families.

There also seems to be a link between longevity and having a sibling. So you may want to think about having 2 children instead of one.