Your Physical Job and the One Body You've Got

If you think being physically active at work is enough to keep you healthy, think again. In fact, too much physical activity at work may be harmful to you.

Occupational health researcher Pieter Coenen and his science posse found that, of 193,636 men who were physically active on the job, those who were the most physical had an 18% higher risk of dying early compared to people with less active jobs. This statistic may be hard to believe considering studies show that Americans are fat because we sit too much and because junk food is cheaper and way more convenient than healthy food. Isn’t the all-star weight lost surgery specialist from My 600 lb Life based in big ‘ol Texas, USA? When that British program Supersize vs. Superskinny wants to scare their 300 lb—I mean—24 stone participants away from the fish and chips, crisps, and curry takeaway don’t they bring them to America where the super obese live? How many fat manual laborers do you come across? Still, the findings and the debate surrounding them isn’t necessarily over fit or fat. It’s about the stress manual labor puts on our bodies. Yes. Our female bodies. The job study may have been conducted on male subjects, but the effects of physical labor on our health is an issue we as trades women should also be concerned with. We can’t ignore the fact that heart disease, once considered a man’s disease, is now the number one cause of death in American women across races and occupations or that heart disease is the number one killer of American men, yet kills more women than men. Knowing what we know, early death should also being a concern. With the average age of death in the United States being 75 years and retirement age looking to stretch to 67 years, dying anywhere around the age of 75 is a major rip-off.

As physical workers, we have a natural advantage over sedentary workers. We’re moving, climbing, lifting, building strength, and burning calories. It’s true, our spines may not be curling over as we rot at a desk job for eight hours, but working a physically demanding job for just as long is the opposite extreme. Our heart rates remain elevated while carrying out our physical duties, and the short breaks many of us get and the joke that is our two-day weekend aren’t enough to off-set the daily stress we put on our bodies.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Take your physical health seriously, right now. Show your body some love by taking more breaks throughout the day, lowering the intensity of your physical duties, and treating it to the kind of physical activity it recognizes as beneficial—recreational exercise. Unlike the type of on-going physical activity at work, which, though enjoyable at times, strains the body and taxes the heart, recreational exercise is the kind of physical activity that releases endorphins and allows for rest and recovery. When done correctly, exercise strengthens the cardiovascular and immune systems. Exercise will utilize the energy you didn’t think you had to give you a boost. Exercise is also an excellent way to manage stress. Take it a step further and book frequent therapeutic massages.

Those of us who already engage in healthy forms of physical activity should keep it up. Those of us who don’t, need to get running, jumping, walking, meditating, stretching, and yoga-ing. It’s important to balance out your demanding work day with some recreational exercise. Your mind and body need it. Your life depends on it.

Image by Gerd Altmann