

Working Long Hours Can Be Depressing, Truly - danso
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/26/145912523/working-long-hours-can-be-depressing-truly

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dhruval
Our brains are working quite hard while playing video games or browsing random
things on the internet.

Yet these are things we do to 'relax' after a hard day's work.

The problem isn't long hours per se. The problem is that the long hours are
being spent doing work that is 'boring'.

So we must consider what makes something 'boring' as opposed to 'interesting'.
This is probably tied to our unconscious brain sensing if the work is valuable
in terms of having survival or reproduction value on the African savanna where
humans evolved. The reward mechanism in humans sucks at figuring out if white
collar work is useful.

The problem is solvable through technology, if we can figure out a way to
trigger the reward mechanism in a way that relates to the output of white
collar work. The main challenge is that it is difficult to tie rewards to work
in a meaningful way that doesn't leave it open to exploitation by clever
humans. But then again if we get to the point where AI strong enough to
monitor a job then maybe we don't really need humans to do that job.

On a more practical level, I find one can make anything interesting by simply
paying attention to the senses fully as you perform the task. Admittedly it
does take some practice to do this effortlessly and stop getting distracted by
thoughts.

~~~
haraball
Sometimes when I'm tired of coding and thinking about the same problems for a
while, I still catch myself in managing to focus on a game of Sudoku on the
phone while having a break. Maybe I'm just using a different part of the brain
to do this, so the other part used for programming really gets a break? Just
like you can't manage to do any more squats when training, but still can do
lots of bench presses?

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robinhouston
The paper is published in the open access journal PLoS One, and linked from
this piece:
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030719)

Those speculating that the causation might lie in the other direction should
at least bear in mind that this is a prospective cohort study (following a
particular group of people over a long period of time). It found that – after
controlling for income – people who worked longer hours were more likely to
experience a _subsequent_ major depressive episode.

Of course you might like to speculate that there is a hidden variable: perhaps
some psychological factor that both predisposes people to work long hours and
also increases their risk of depression. This research doesn’t rule out that
possibility, as far as I can tell. To do that you would need to randomly
assign people to the long-hours or short-hours condition and follow them for a
period of time. I imagine it would be rather difficult to carry out a study of
that sort.

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quanticle
I do wonder, though, as to the direction of the causation arrow. I know
perfectionism is well correlated with depression. Perfectionism is also well
correlated with working long hours. Maybe it's the depression, or rather, the
perfectionism caused by depression that causes the long hours?

~~~
TheCowboy
Depression usually involves a highly demotivated less-productive state of
being.

Perfectionism, at least in this case, is an affliction where one desires
perfection, but as way all know is not truly achievable given realistic
constraints and scarce resources.

Scarce resources such as the number of hours per day. Those who attempt
unrealistic levels of perfection will inevitably spend excess hours working.
This can burn someone out due to not reaching such perfection, or just from
over-stretching oneself. One can also experience depression due to being
overwhelming at the prospect of what they desire, due to perfectionism, not
being achievable.

It is extremely difficult to bring oneself to work long hours producing high
of quality when depressed.

Maybe the arrows seem to reverse when if depressed, the result being of lower
quality or decreased output per hour, workers are forced to work longer hours
to compensate and stay afloat, but that isn't exactly perfectionism unless
their work was already adequate.

In this case, it is civil servants in Britain. That perfectionism even plays a
role in this specific sample is pure speculation. They're not exactly the same
as the HN demographic that we associate with perfectionism.

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heresyforme
"Still, it's worth noting that the population groups most at risk for major
depression are women, members of minority groups and people unable to work or
unemployed, and those without health insurance, according to the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

A strange thing to add as an addendum. Why are these particular groups singled
out? And in particular they noted that "people unable to work or unemployed"
are predisposed to depressive episodes after working long hours of overtime.
How can they work overtime, if they are unemployed?

The study appears to have targeted men and women of middle-age, not particular
sub-groups within those two groups. I'm not saying that it didn't need the
addendum, but it certainly seems out of place here.

------
michaelochurch
My observation of this matter: working _ineffectively_ leads to burnout and
(if it's let to go too far) depression. That occurs whether it's 20 hours per
week or 70. I don't think "long hours" are dangerous if the hours are
effective, engaged hours that produce meaningful results. It's actually
possible to work 45-60 hours per week effectively and sustainably, but only
(a) from a position of complete autonomy over what one does and how and when
one does it, (b) with a mix of labor (some social, some hard-core cognitive
like coding), (c) with strict attention to diet and exercise, (d) with enough
reward (and I'm talking about achievement and recognition far more than
remuneration) coming from that work, and (e) with the resources to outsource
all housework and most errands, because at 60 hpw you don't even want to
fucking think about washing dishes.

That said, the longer the hours are, the higher the probability that one is no
longer working effectively. A 13-hour coding day can be fun, but it's rare
that a person can string 7 of those together in a row. And a 13-hour day spent
mostly in tense meatings ("typo" intentional) will kill you.

This can be reinforced by the fact that the first stage of ineffectiveness is
mid-level (non-paralytic) anxiety, not panic attacks (a harsh warning sign
that usually slows people down) or major depression (outright showstopper).

Actually, I think the reason why there are a lot of micromanagers in the world
is that they tend to be people who linger in that twilight stage of declining
effectiveness, and that it's possible (in a managerial role) for this state to
be stable. Managers at level-1 burnout (non-paralytic anxiety) get the "I'm
the only one who can do this shit competently" complex and become
micromanagers. In a subordinate, this state quickly (~3 months at most)
progresses to level 2 (paralytic anxiety, panic attacks) or even 3 (crippling
mental illness, "nervous breakdown")... either of which is likely to end that
job one way or another, but a lot of people enjoy power and that means that a
person in authority can stay at a level-1 low-burn for a long time.

~~~
pasbesoin
I'm going to glom on to your comment to make a personal observation about the
ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and frustration of needlessly noisy,
distracting work environments.

A full day or even long day of being really productive can be energizing. You
can't do that non-stop, all day, every day (meaning from waking to sleeping),
but it can be a powerful feeling to really "get stuff done".

Waiting for your neighbors to shut up so that you can actually think things
through, for the umpteenth status meeting to grind its way through more or
less "reading the memo", and working on far less than optimal equipment? Not
so much.

It's all been said before. But if management wants to fix the problem (hint:
often they don't, really), best to actually identify the problem, not a
symptom.

