Outcome of Overworking on Physical & Mental Stress Highlights by Ziqitza Healthcare

At Ziqitza Healthcare Ltd, as an Emergency Service Provider, we are at the forefront with the various state governments and corporates to ensure that our services which are so critical are not hampered at all. This has been possible due to commitment and resilience of our employees, franchise partners and support from our vendors. The Crew, CDC, regional and head office staff are working tirelessly with the government in making continuous arrangements for safe and efficient delivery of the emergency 108 ambulance services.

Dr. Santosh Datar from Ziqitza Healthcare, says" have you ever wondered how overworking negatively impacts your life and productivity? Working hard is not an option for most people. It's necessary if you want to put food on the table and accelerate your career. However, there is such a thing as working too hard. We're all guilty of it. Maybe a deadline is coming up fast or you just need to put in extra hours for the week. Every once and a while can easily turn into ever week and each weekend. Before you know it, a culture of overworking yourself has been established and can likely lead to repeated bouts of burnout."

While some stress is good for health (eustress), overworking produces distress, which has prolonged effects, not just on individuals, but organisations too. These effects has been further explained by Dr. Santosh Datar from Ziqitza limited as follows:

On Individuals:

• It is bad for the heart:

A research study conducted by a university found that white-collar workers who worked three or more hours longer than a normal, seven-hour day had a 60% higher risk of being prone to heart-related problems, as opposed to white-collar workers who didn't work overtime. These heart-related issues include - death due to heart diseases or cardiac arrests, non-fatal heart attacks, and angina, a condition caused by low blood supply to the heart.

• It impairs sleep:

Built-up stress due to overworking can negatively impact your sleep; whether it's the resulting stress, staring at the computer screen, or just not having enough time to unwind before going to sleep. This can cause a "sleep debt", which can have a negative impact on the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in memory creation and consolidation.

• It can lead to type-2 diabetes:

A group of researchers from the same university also found that the link between stress due to longer working hours and type-2 diabetes is apparent in individuals in the low socioeconomic status groups, which was true, irrespective of their age, sex, obesity, and physical activity.

• It can lead to a burnout:

Prolonged stress can lead an individual on the road to a burnout, which is a state of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion. It can eventually induce a feeling of helplessness, disillusionment, and complete exhaustion in the individual.
On Organisations:

• Leads to reduced output:

While having longer work hours is known to increase productivity, this period only lasts for a short while, because people tend to do their best work between two to six hours of their work day. After eight hours of work, fatigue sets in, and productivity levels tend to drop significantly.

• Employees are likely to make more mistakes:

With excessive overwork comes excessive exhaustion. This makes employees prone to distraction that can lead to frequent blunders, thereby resulting in mammoth losses for the organisation. Similar scenarios were observed by Ziqitza Rajasthan in the past.

Dr. Datar further commented, overworking can be harmful to individuals, but it need not turn fatal. Stress can be managed by determining its source, and working towards reducing it. It is necessary for individuals to ask themselves if they really stretch themselves beyond their capacity, or if they are doing it out of a need or desire for recognition, or because they are fueling a habit. Most importantly, it is important to switch off from work at the right time, and focus on yourself to avoid the distress caused by overworking, as well as its prolonged effects. For instance, corporate wellness programs by Ziqitza for preventing employee burnouts is an important aspect of an organisation's healthcare initiatives. It makes a good business sense as it is an investment and not an expense and we assure you this will be well appreciated gift by your staff.

About Ziqitza Healthcare Limited

Ziqitza Healthcare Limited (ZHL) is the leading provider of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in India over the past 17 years. Ziqitza is a well-established corporate entity in primary healthcare services in India and the Gulf and has served 46 million people of India till date. Ziqitza limited has not only witnessed but also partnered the dramatic change in the EMS scenario in India.

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