How overwork is literally killing us
By Christine Ro
Lisa Choi ignored the first symptoms. After all, the 53-year-old business analyst was a very active, fit vegetarian, who cycled frequently and avoided high-fat foods. She was far from the typical victim of a heart attack.
However, the Seattle-based Choi was working 60-hour workweeks, including evenings and weekends. She was facing tight deadlines and managing complex digital projects. This workload was utterly normal to her. “I have a really high-stress job… I’m usually on overdrive,” she says.
It wasn’t until several months ago, when she suddenly started feeling an anvil-like pressure on her chest, that she began to take her symptoms more seriously. In the hospital, it turned out that she had a tear in her artery. This is a hallmark of a spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), a relatively rare heart condition that particularly affects women and people younger than 50. Told that she would need an angioplasty to open up her artery, Choi thought, “I don’t have time for this. I’m scheduled for migrations at work, and I’m doing all this stuff.”
Like Choi, many are also finding themselves in ill health due to intense work schedules. New, sobering research – said to be the first-ever study to quantify the global burden of disease from working long hours – has shown how bleak the situation is.
