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Researchers from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania found that moving away from a fixed workday can cut the risk of cardiovascular disease. Even more surprisingly, switching to a flexible schedule helped keep participants’ hearts healthier and biologically younger.
Employers who can move their employees to flexible hours should consider doing so to protect their workers’ health.
What the Researchers Discovered
Employees with supportive supervisors tended to have fewer heart-related problems.
The study enrolled 1,528 workers: high- and mid-level IT employees and low-wage caregivers. All participants shifted to a flexible work schedule. The team measured blood pressure, body mass index, glycated hemoglobin, smoking status, and cholesterol at the start of the study and again after 12 months.
The researchers used those health measurements to calculate each person’s cardiometabolic risk score (CRS), as reported by the Daily Mail. A higher score indicates a greater risk to heart health.
The team found that workers who began the study with a higher cardiovascular risk showed the biggest improvements. The drop in their CRS corresponded to a reduction in biological age of roughly 5.5 to 10.3 years.
In fact, these workers ended up with heart health similar to people who were, on average, five to ten years younger, the researchers said.
The largest benefits appeared among participants aged 45 and older, who were at elevated risk for cardiovascular disease. Those older workers also reported improvements in well-being more often than their younger colleagues.
During the study, the research team trained company leaders on ways to support employees’ personal lives. Managers and staff attended practical workshops to learn techniques for improving self-control and managing flexible schedules.
Key Takeaways
Professor Orfeu Buxton, director of the Sleep, Health, and Society Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, said the project was designed to “ultimately change workplace culture.” He added that changing workplace culture is necessary to reduce conflicts between work and personal life and, in turn, improve employees’ health. Buxton said the team now feels these changes should be rolled out more broadly.
Professor Lisa Berkman, director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, said the study shows “how important working conditions are as social determinants of health.”
“When stressful working conditions and conflicts between work and family were alleviated, we observed a decrease in cardiovascular disease risk among the most vulnerable employees without any negative impact on their productivity,” she added.
The researchers say these findings could be especially important for low- and middle-wage workers, who traditionally have less control over their schedules. The study’s conclusions were published in the American Journal of Public Health.
