Islamabad (Pakistan Point News / Online - 20th October, 2019) Researchers believe that stress and cardiovascular health are linked in some way, but the association is not yet fully clear. A large-scale new study has recently delved into the effects of a unique kind of stress.According to the American Heart Association (AHA), stress may affect factors that increase the risk of heart disease, including blood pressure and cholesterol level.One major source of stress is the workplace.
However, one type of stress that researchers often leave out of studies is that felt by a person who needs to simultaneously balance the demands of work and family life.Health professionals can determine people's cardiovascular health score. Based on seven metrics including diet, blood pressure, and physical activity levels, the researchers who conducted the new study used this score to investigate how work and family stress can impact heart health.
According to the study paper, work-family conflict refers to "a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect."More than 11,000 workers ages 35-74, from six state capitals in Brazil, made up the study's sample. The participants came from a variety of educational and work backgrounds, and the study included a slightly higher number of women.An unequal impactThe analysis showed a distinct sex difference.
Men reported less work interference with family and more time for personal care and leisure. Both sexes reported a similar amount of family interference with work.However, women appeared to be worse off. Those who reported a number of frequent work-family conflicts had lower cardiovascular health scores."This was interesting because in our previous study, job stress alone affected men and women almost equally," says senior study author Dr.
Itamar Santos, a professor at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.There could be a simple explanation as to why this is the case, and it has to do with traditional gender roles. "You feel the stress to fulfill the gender roles, and I think women still feel more of a need to have that nurturing home life," says Dr. Gina price Lundberg, clinical director of the Emory Women's Heart Center in Atlanta, GA.How to live with stressWhat this study has dipped into is the need for a good work-life balance. However, this is easier said than done in many cases.Dr. Santos hopes that the new findings will encourage workplaces to introduce stress reducing initiatives and encourage doctors to look for signs of stress when examining people.
