Go easy or work will kill you

London, Jan 23: Attention! all cut-throat corporate executives working round the clock to drive your businesses to new frontiers.

Leave your work, sit back for a while and read this. Experts providing the strongest evidence yet have revealed how high-pressure jobs causing chronic stress at work could dramatically increase the risk of heart disease by disrupting the body's internal system. The study involving more than 10,000 civil servants since the mid-1980's could lead to tougher guidelines for employers on reducing stress.

People question whether it was work stress or stress from other parts of people's lives or whether some people just had angry personalities that was the cause. ''We showed there is an association between the stress people reported and their biological responses,'' the Independent quoted Tarani Chandola of University College London as saying.

The study also claimed that those in low-status jobs, who were required to follow the orders of their bosses, were more stressed and died sooner, than the hot-shot executives handing out the orders.

UNI