In the daily grind to make money, often times just to simply make ends meet, many people find themselves working increasingly long hours. Working overtime has become an integral part of the typical work week, whereby the hours of free time that could be spent with friends, family, or simply alone are forsaken in an effort to earn more income.

Now, however, researchers are discovering what some of us may already intuitively know: working overtime can be detrimental to our health, so much so that it could actually adversely affect our lifespan. In a recent study, it was found that when workers logged in at least three additional hours on top of a regular 7 hour day, they increased their risk of heart problems by as much as 60% over people who did not work overtime. Heart problems included death due to heart disease as well as non-fatal heart attacks.

In the study in question, which was published in the European Heart Journal, researchers gathered information on over 10,000 civil servants working in the United Kingdom. The authors of the study pointed out that the relationship between working hours and heart disease was independent of numerous risk factors that were measured at the beginning of the study, including smoking, obesity, and serum cholesterol.

The research is part of a larger study that was initiated in 1985. The current analysis involved over 6000 workers who were between the ages of 39 and 61 years and were followed until 2002 through 2004. With an average follow-up time of 11.2 years, the researchers found that, after adjusting for such considerations as sex, demographics, age, and marital status, there had been 369 cases of heart disease. After adjusting for the proper factors, it was determined that three to four hours of overtime increased the risk for heart disease.

The reason for the increase is not completely clear, though it has been proposed that the willingness to work overtime is associated with type A personalities, which can be characterized as aggressive, competitive, tense, and sometimes hostile. People who worked a lot of overtime also seemed prone to depression or anxiety, and suffered from poor sleep patterns as a result.

Another possible reason is that some of the negative health consequences that are linked to excessive working hours are not debilitating enough to prevent a worker from putting their hours. In other words, overtime workers are more likely to ignore their health symptoms and keep working rather than taking a break or seeking out medical attention.

Whatever be the case, it might be instructive for workers to keep things in perspective. While the desire to make more income is perfectly reasonable, when it begins to compromise our health and even shorten our lifespan, it might not be a bad idea to give some serious thought as to why we are working in the first place.

Thist post was included in the blog carnival Help Me Get Organized.