Job Stress Can Bring On The Blues

Posting Date: 11/02/2000

If you think your job is driving you crazy, you may be right.

A study in the American Journal of Public Health shows that jobs with high demands and low decision authority can cause you to become excessively depressed.

Researchers looked at 905 full-time employees in Baltimore, Md., and concluded that those with high job strain had a greater prevalence of major depressive episodes. They also had more depressive symptoms as well as an increase in dysphoria, or feeling sad, blue and depressed for three or more days.

Women generally suffer more depression from this job strain than men, according to this report from Johns Hopkins University. However, unmarried men are also at a higher risk of depression from the work environment than their married counterparts.

The bottom line is that heavy demands in your occupation can give you a bad case of the blues, especially if you don?t have much to say about the situation.

Source: American Journal of Public Health, November 2000.

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