Tips on how work and home affect your heart health

Are you concerned about your risk of cardiovascular disease? If you've been carefully examining your risk factors, you may have noted potential health problems that you'd never considered before. For example, the number of cigarettes you've been smoking may be a concern, or living with a smoker. Some realize that they never seem to have time to unwind, and, in turn, often feel edgy and tense. Upon examination, most people will find something that they need to change. One factor that is often given less weight than it should be, is how work and daily activity factor into your overall risk level.

Tension and stress play into your heart health. The more tense you are, and less relaxed, the more at-risk you are likely to be or become. Here are work-related factors that can cause your risk level to go up.

• Pressure at work
• Unfair boss
• Commuting
• Long hours
• Taking work home
• Work emails or phone calls while away from the office

Health tip: If you are an office worker, you probably find that, even when you manage to escape from your desk, someone tries to reach you by cell phone. Some days it seems impossible to distance yourself from work obligations. However, it is very important to set yourself limits and learn to switch off from work.

Like the influence of work, your home life and surroundings are often overlooked when considering your health. Often we think of physical factors and responses: being overweight, dieting; being inactive and excersising, for example. The day-to-day factors listed below are also considerations, as they can also raise your risk of heart disease.

• Living with a smoker
• Living near a main road
• Exposure to heavy traffic
• Exposure to loud noise
• Dealing with domestic stress
• Living alone

Health tip: If any of these are part of your day-to-day experience, look at making adjustments. Even seemingly small tweaks, such as wearing earplugs when you are around loud noise, can help.