Working long hours? Here's how it changes the brain
Are you working longer hours? Well, we don't know how it would reflect on your paycheck, but it's certainly going to alter your brain. Yes, that's right. A new study has found that long working hours could alter the brain structure and even affect your cognitive and emotional health.
A new study found that long working hours may alter the structure of the brain. The findings of the study are published in the
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
journal.
Long working hours and the brain
The preliminary findings from the new study suggest that working long hours changes the structure of the
brain
, particularly the areas associated with emotional regulation and executive function, such as working memory and problem-solving. The study has confirmed that overwork may lead to neuroadaptive changes, which affect cognitive and emotional health.
Previous studies have found that long working hours are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and mental health issues. Overwork kills more than 800,000 people every year, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The study
Though the behavioural and psychological consequences of working overtime were known, its neurological mechanisms and anatomical changes weren't explored.
The researcher explored this, and to understand it they analysed structural brain volume and compared the impact of overwork on specific brain regions in healthcare workers, who regularly worked 52 or more hours a week. They analysed data from the Gachon Regional Occupational Cohort Study (GROCS) and MRI scans carried out for a research project on the effects of working conditions on brain structure.
The participants in the GROCS were asked to take an additional MRI scan, and the final analysis included 110 people after excluding those with missing data or poor MRI image quality.
Among the participants, most of them were clinicians: 32 worked excessive weekly hours (28%); 78 worked standard hours.
The findings
The researchers noticed that people who were working long hours every week were significantly younger, had less job experience, but were more highly educated than those clocking up regular hours.
The researchers used voxel-based morphometry (VBM), a brain imaging technique, to understand the changes.
They found that people who worked 52 or more hours a week had significant changes in the regions of the brain associated with executive function and emotional regulation, compared to those who worked regular hours. People working long hours had a 19% larger volume in the middle frontal gyrus compared to those with standard working hours.
This part of the brain has a crucial role in various cognitive functions, particularly in the frontal lobe.
It's linked with attention, working memory, and language-related processing.
VBM showed peak increases in 17 regions, including the middle frontal gyrus, the superior frontal gyrus, which is involved in attention, planning, and decision-making, and the insula. The insula has a key role in integrating sensory, motor, and autonomic feedback from the body. This includes emotional processing, self-awareness, and understanding social context.
'While the results should be interpreted cautiously due to the exploratory nature of this pilot study, they represent a meaningful first step in understanding the relationship between overwork and brain health,' the researchers said.
'Notably, the increased brain volumes observed in overworked individuals may reflect neuroadaptive responses to chronic occupational stress, although the exact mechanisms remain speculative,' they added.
'The observed changes in brain volume may provide a biological basis for the cognitive and emotional challenges often reported in overworked individuals. Future longitudinal and multi-modal neuroimaging studies are warranted to confirm these findings and elucidate the underlying mechanisms. The results underscore the importance of addressing overwork as an occupational health concern and highlight the need for workplace policies that mitigate excessive working hours,' they said.
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