Don’t Let the Recession Lead to Depression

Everything in life is relative, so it’s difficult to convince office professionals who suffer from depression that they have many things to be happy about—like having a job, for instance. Depression, of course, is an incredibly complicated beast, where our emotional, physical, intellectual, mental, ancestral and medical capacities all verge together in our head like a Mississippi delta of our personal human condition.

Happiness in life is largely based on the ability to balance our responsibilities, stresses, passions and challenges without letting one completely dominate all of the others. So when most Americans are struggling to make ends meet in a terrible financial climate and anemic economy, we tend to lose balance and focus our energy on paying bills, saving pennies, and surviving life instead of actually enjoying it.  To do that, most of us work long hours… very long hours. And this is making office professionals everywhere depressed.

This article explains, “According to a new study, working long hours – regardless of job stress or satisfaction – increases a person’s risk for depression. Researchers at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and University College London followed nearly 2,000 middle aged British civil servants for almost six years. They found that in workers with no psychological illness, the rate of a major depressive episode was 2.43 times higher for those who worked more than 11 hours per day compared with employees who worked 7 to 8 hours a day.”

Sure, working overtime and receiving overtime pay is a great feeling. When life has you on your heels, it feels great to establish solid financial footing, but all of that work and diligence does come at a price. So make sure to keep yourself in check as you push your mental health to unhealthy limits. Stretching yourself too far for too long will ultimately end up costing you more than you save in the long run.

Photo courtesy of S Hart Photography.