The impact of physical labor on a person. On the impact of hard physical labor on men's health

4.5. Evidence that hard work is bad for health

• According to a study by the British Medical Journal in 2002, people who are constantly stressed at work are twice as likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those with little or no work related stress.
• According to a 1996 UK government report, those who work more than forty-eight hours a week double their risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
• According to a study conducted in 2003 in the United States, working long and hard is more unhealthy than gaining twenty kilograms of excess weight or aging thirty years.
• According to one UN report, approximately two million people a year die due to workplace accidents and occupational diseases. This means that work kills more people than war (650,000 deaths a year).

In short, hard work can kill you. Victims of the work ethic are people who work hard all their lives in the expectation that they are about to achieve success, but as a result, they achieve nothing.

But the key to success is to work on the few things that really matter, to leave your mark on the world - and not waste time on everything else.

Peter Drucker in this regard advised: "Do not try to do everything at once as it is necessary - instead, immediately do only what is necessary."

To make sure you don't waste time on projects that don't add value, and that you instead have time to be creative and active, get in the habit of asking yourself the following questions:

• How can I best use my time right now?
• What book should I read right now to understand how best to manage my non-traditional business?
• What is the best way to market your product or service?
• What is the likelihood that my current activity will help me improve my own life today or in the future? Which undertaking will bring me the most money with the least risk?
• Who can I talk to to get more useful information about the development of my career and business?

It is clear that if you direct your efforts in an unpromising direction, all your hard work is likely to go to waste.

On the other side. if you only work four or five hours a day, and on creative projects that may bring in a lot of money in the future, the time you spend may be quite enough for success.

And in Britain, Canada, the USA and Australia, perhaps two or three hours a day is enough - there are so many opportunities in these countries.

And one more thing: maybe career counselors told you to gain experience in as many areas as possible. In my opinion, it is better to focus your efforts in one significant area, in extreme cases - in two or three, no more.

If you start too many things at once, you will have to spread your efforts, taking resources away from important projects. Ideally, it is better to specialize in some fairly narrow area, in an activity that gives you pleasure, in which you could excel and achieve mastery.

Some will want to follow Robert Allen's advice in Multiple Streams of Income: How to Enjoy Unlimited Wealth for a Lifetime to find multiple sources of income at once.

This is a very sound idea. However, a person who works in a "fake" job or runs a non-traditional business can only work on a limited number of projects at a time.

If you want your business to be simple and, like mine, to be a one-man theatre, I advise you to limit yourself to three or four sources of income. While I've managed to be both a writer, self-publisher, lecturer, and college teacher part-time in the past, I wouldn't take the risk of further expanding my income streams.

No doubt if, in addition to the above activities, I tried to rent out and work in the field of network marketing, I would seriously overexert my mental and financial resources, and maybe I would even have to stop writing and publishing books.

The key to success is in a sense of proportion.

Take Pablo Picasso.

He is one of the most prolific and significant artists of the 20th century. You will certainly agree that Picasso, an excellent painter, sculptor, engraver, theater decorator and ceramics master, achieved impressive success without having a "real" job.

However, like me, he did not believe that success should be achieved at any cost.

“Always work beyond your capabilities, but below this measure,” Picasso advised. “You can master three elements - use only two. You can master ten - use five. it will be seen from your work that you still have strength in reserve."

You can talk for a very long time about how hard work kills a person, but this topic deserves a separate book.

By the way, I have already written two articles on this subject. But let me instead recommend Richard Koch's The 80/20 Principle, which will give you the secret to achieving much more impressive results with less effort.

I will only add that, in whatever area you labor, the best results come from a creative approach.

While both creativity and hard work require energy, true success without "real" work is based on the former.

Introduction

Labor physiology is a science that studies the functioning of the human body during labor activity.

Its task is to develop principles and norms that contribute to the improvement and improvement of working conditions, as well as the regulation of labor.

Physiology is the science of the life of the body and its individual parts - cells, organs, functional systems. Physiology studies the mechanisms of the implementation of the functions of a living organism (growth, reproduction, respiration, etc.), regulation and adaptation to the external environment. In particular, she studies the regulatory and integrating role of the nervous system in the body.

From a physiological point of view, labor is the expenditure of man's physical and mental energy, but it is necessary and useful to man. And only in harmful conditions or with excessive strain of human forces in one form or another can the negative consequences of labor manifest themselves. Labor is usually characterized by heaviness and tension.

The severity of labor is a characteristic of the labor process, reflecting the predominant load on the musculoskeletal system and functional systems of the body (cardiovascular, respiratory, etc.) that ensure its activity. The severity of labor is characterized by physical dynamic load, the mass of the load being lifted and moved, the total number of stereotyped working movements, the magnitude of the static load, the nature of the working posture, the depth and frequency of the body tilt, and movements in space.

Labor intensity is a characteristic of the labor process, reflecting the load mainly on the central nervous system, sensory organs, and the emotional sphere of the worker. The factors characterizing the intensity of work include: intellectual, sensory, emotional loads, the degree of monotony of loads, the mode of work.

Ergonomics is a science that studies the functional capabilities of a person in labor processes from the point of view of anatomy, anthropology, physiology, psychology and hygiene in order to create tools and working conditions, as well as technological processes that best meet the requirements of the human body.

Ergonomics and aesthetics of production are integral parts of the culture of production, i.e. a set of measures for the organization of labor aimed at creating a favorable working environment. The requirements of the scientific organization of labor underlie the improvement of the culture of production. The culture of production is achieved by the correct organization of work processes and relations between employees, the improvement of workplaces, and the aesthetic transformation of the working environment.

Distinguish between mental and physical labor.

Physical work

As for physical labor, fairly objective criteria for assessing severity have been determined for it, these are energy costs.

All types of physical work are performed with the participation of muscles, which, by contracting, do work in the physiological sense of the word. Replenishment of muscle energy occurs due to the consumption of nutrients that come constantly from the bloodstream. The same blood flow from the muscles carries away waste substances - oxidation products. The main source of energy is the process of glycogen oxidation by oxygen, also contained in the blood. Glycogen is a polysaccharide made up of glucose residues. It is deposited in the cytoplasm of liver and muscle cells. With a lack of glucose in the body, glycogen is broken down by enzymes to glucose, which enters the bloodstream.

Physical work is usually divided into three groups according to their severity. This division is based on oxygen consumption as one of the objective indicators of energy consumption available for measurement. In this regard, work is distinguished: light, medium and heavy.

Light work includes work performed while sitting, standing or walking, but without systematic stress, without lifting and carrying heavy loads. These are jobs in the sewing industry, in precision instrument making and mechanical engineering, in printing, in communications, etc.

The category of moderate severity includes work associated with constant walking and carrying small (up to 10 kg) weights, and performed while standing. This is work in mechanical assembly shops, in mechanized open-hearth, rolling, foundry, forging, thermal shops, etc.

The category of heavy includes work associated with systematic physical stress, as well as with constant movement and carrying significant (more than 10 kg) weights. These are blacksmith works with hand forging, foundries with hand stuffing and pouring of flasks, etc.

To increase the delivery of oxygen and nutrients, as well as to remove their oxidation products, the cardiovascular system increases blood flow. This is done in two ways: by increasing the pulse rate and by increasing the volume of each contraction of the heart.

So, the main physiological reactions of the body to physical work are an increase in heart rate, an increase in blood pressure, an increase in breathing and an increase in pulmonary ventilation, a change in blood composition, and an increase in sweating. Changes gradually increase, reaching a certain level, at which the increased work of organs and systems is balanced with the needs of the body.

Upon termination of work, a recovery period begins, when the changed functions gradually return to normal. But the duration of recovery of various functions is not the same:

pulse, pressure, respiratory rate and pulmonary ventilation are restored in 10-15 minutes;

blood composition, etc. - in 45-50 minutes.

This is due to the fact that during intensive work, the internal resources of the body are mobilized, oxygen and nutrients are depleted of non-working tissues and organs, and the reserves of the muscle cells themselves are absorbed, which, due to these internal reserves, can work for some time without oxygen consumption (the so-called anaerobic phase of muscle work). To replenish these reserves during rest, the body continues to consume an increased amount of oxygen.

If, with prolonged hard work and with the mobilization of all the resources of the body, the delivery of the required amount of oxygen and nutrients is not ensured, muscle fatigue occurs.

Muscles work not only when a person moves weights, but also when he holds them in place, or holds the weight of his own body or its individual parts (torso, arms, head).

In this regard, the main indicators of the severity of the labor process are:

the mass of the lifted and moved cargo manually;

· stereotyped work movements;

Working posture

body tilts, movement in space.

Forced and even more uncomfortable position of the body, even in the case of light work, can lead to rapid fatigue, because. static load on the same muscle groups is more tiring. The working posture can be free, uncomfortable, fixed and forced. Free postures include comfortable sitting postures, with the possibility of changing the working position of the body or its parts. Fixed working posture - the impossibility of changing the relative position of various parts of the body relative to each other. Similar postures are encountered when performing work related to the need to distinguish between small objects in the process of work. The most rigidly fixed working postures are for representatives of those professions who have to perform their main production operations using optical magnifying devices - magnifiers and microscopes. Uncomfortable working postures include postures with a large inclination or rotation of the torso, with arms raised above shoulder level, with inconvenient placement of the lower extremities. Forced postures include working postures lying down, kneeling, squatting, etc.

Physiologists distinguish several stages in the process of work:

At the beginning, working capacity increases (workability);

Having reached a maximum, labor productivity remains at this level for a more or less long time (stable work);

Then comes a gradual decrease in performance (fatigue).

ü The organization of short breaks at the end of the maximum working capacity reduces fatigue and increases overall labor productivity.

In addition to physiological changes in the form of fatigue, various types of physical stress can also cause some pathological phenomena in the body, i.e. diseases:

Prolonged work in an uncomfortable position can lead to a curvature of the spine to the side (scoliosis), or forward (kyphosis);

· with prolonged standing or walking under load - flat feet or varicose veins of the lower extremities;

Constant static tension or monotonous movements during heavy intensive work lead to neuromuscular diseases (inflammation of the tendons, neurosis, lumbago, etc.);

frequent and prolonged tension of the same abdominal muscle groups - hernias;

strain of the organs of vision - myopia.

The female body is especially sensitive to the adverse effects of various harmful factors. In particular, with physical activity over 15 kg, uterine body prolapse is observed. Constant static and dynamic load on the spine and legs in women can lead to a violation of the shape and function of the feet, changes in the sacro-pelvic angle. In women whose working conditions are associated with vibration, spontaneous abortions, premature births, and toxicosis of the first and second halves of pregnancy may occur. Of great practical importance is the impact on the specific functions of the female body of chemicals, even when their content does not exceed the maximum permissible concentrations (MPC).

The term "health" in the constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) is defined as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". In this sense, the health of the population is influenced by working and living conditions, housing conditions, wages, food security and quality, the state of medical care, climatic and geographical and other social and hygienic factors.

All professions are important, all professions ... harmful! No, but how else? At work, we have to spend most of our lives, as a result of which it takes away our youth and, in general, the best years. But if time is running out on our personal orders, then no one has yet signed up to give health to work. And that's exactly what happens. Whether it's sitting at a computer for many hours, constantly moving around the city on your feet, sitting in the driver's seat or constantly lifting weights. Almost any job irreparably affects health…

So, yes, if you want to stay beautiful and healthy all your life, make the right choice - stop working ... well, or at least do not do the work that is most dangerous and harmful to your health. For you to understand what we are talking about, Careerist.ru studied data from a study by the American Medical Association, on the basis of which the Analytical Center ranked the most unhealthy professions. Consider all of the following and think: maybe it's time to think about changing your profile?

Accountant and other office workers

It is unlikely that your back will thank you for 9 hours of sedentary work in a stuffy office. According to statistics, about 40% of office workers suffer from back pain. Even regular exercise does not save - the enormous loads on the cervical and lumbar spine cannot be compensated for with almost nothing. Everything is aggravated if your workplace is not equipped with comfortable office furniture - in this case, pain and obesity are guaranteed to you.

However, regular physical activity will still help to somewhat compensate for the loss of health. No, this is not work in the country on weekends, but stable classes in the gym. At the same time, you will put the figure in order. And yes, AMA experts advise to walk more often in the fresh air.

Cooks and other catering workers

In Soviet times, the work of a cook in the dining room was considered very profitable - a rare catering worker went home without a few bags full of food. Today, in fact, nothing has changed. As a result - 75% of workers in this industry are obese due to constant overeating. Of course, they have less stress at work than other representatives of this list, but it is difficult to envy them about this. They constantly have to stand on their feet in conditions of elevated temperatures, which also adversely affects health. High blood pressure, constant back pain, heart problems - these are just some of what cooks have to deal with.

Sellers

Shop assistants and other trade workers are another area that traditionally suffers from high cholesterol, obesity and heart problems. Ungrateful buyers, standing work, daily rudeness, stress - all this negatively affects the health of sellers.

Plus, a very low salary, due to which it is impossible to compensate for all professional losses and afford to eat normally. The health problems caused by such work are obvious, so not everyone today is ready to choose this previously revered profession.

Medical workers

Doctors, of course, lead a much more mobile lifestyle than office workers, which, however, does not make the impact of their work on health less significant. So, the traditionally poor diet, a serious bust of stress hormones caused by constant night shifts, many patients and their health problems leave an indelible imprint on the health of doctors, paramedics and nurses. This, in particular, is expressed in an increased risk of the onset and development of diabetes, the spread of intestinal colitis among them and heart problems, such as heart attacks.

police officers

The work of law enforcement officers is traditionally associated with serious stress caused both by the specifics of work, irregular working hours, and the contingent with which they have to communicate. In addition to the serious threat of getting a heart attack due to stress, every third law enforcement officer suffers from high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, which, of course, have absolutely no beneficial effect on their bodies.

Plus, there are objective threats to life and health caused by the work itself - a huge number of police officers are injured every year and even lose their lives when criminals are caught.

Drivers

Driving has never done anyone any good. Drivers are at constant risk of getting into an accident, which requires them to be constantly vigilant, since they are often also responsible for passengers, and this causes them constant tension. As a result, overwork and the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. But this is not the only problem. The fact is that driving is fraught with stagnation of blood in the small pelvis. And this, as you know, is the cause of such unpleasant diseases as hemorrhoids and prostatitis. Plus, you constantly have to breathe exhaust gases - the body will definitely not like them.

Firefighters

The risk of getting burned or injured is by no means the worst thing that awaits domestic firefighters. The fact is that most of them do not end their lives from old age and do not die in fire - they usually get a heart attack. It's all the fault of constant stress, tension, work in a non-standard, irregular mode and constant combat readiness.

In fact, it is generally difficult for firefighters to ever relax, because at any moment it may be necessary to go to a call! In addition to this, constant lack of sleep, malnutrition, participation in physically strenuous activities. No wonder firefighters have heart attacks...

Miners, metallurgists and other working professions

It is hard to imagine that this kind of profession could bring health benefits at all. Hard physical labor speaks for itself. But problems, for example, with the back, are only trifles, compared with what work at metallurgical plants or mines is fraught with for hard workers. Large domestic industrial enterprises literally poison their workers, forcing them to breathe coke-chemical and agglomerate emissions and carcinogens. It has been repeatedly proven that workers in metallurgical plants are many times more at risk of developing cancerous tumors and diseases of the cardiovascular system. The situation is similar with miners who have to breathe in coal dust. No wonder all these professions are classified as the most harmful and dangerous at the level of legislation.

Have you ever wondered why physical labor is often opposed to education, a happy and fulfilling life, is not respected and honored? For me, this state of affairs was taken for granted for a long time. But, as often happens in my life, it was time for this question to be questioned and analyzed.

Starting from the last grades of the school, I was no longer satisfied with answers like “Everyone lives like that”, “Everyone thinks like that”, “Everyone does it like that”. So today I will try to show you that in matters of physical labor, the majority is not right, that without it we will not be able to develop harmoniously, achieve success, live happily and fully.

Possible reasons for incorrect attitude

First, let's look at the reasons for the wrong attitude. First reason- laziness is as old as human nature itself. I do not want to say that laziness is not a hindrance to intellectual work. Sometimes it’s even the opposite: I start doing hard physical labor, just not to write an article.

But if a person is offered a choice of any profession, then, most likely, his choice will be more associated with intellectual labor than with physical labor. And what a person does not like, he often tries to present to himself and others as of little use or even unnecessary. Here come to the rescue Plato's ideas.

Plato taught that a person has an immortal soul - a thinking and feeling entity associated with higher informational and spiritual matters. The body for the soul is just a temporary shelter associated with everything low, earthly and impure. Here begins the excessive exaltation of philosophizing over physical labor.

By the time Christianity becomes the state religion of the Roman Empire, Plato's ideas are already firmly established in it, despite the fact that the main book of Christians - the Bible - says nothing about the immortal soul in Plato's understanding and denies the afterlife itself.

This attitude pervades all strata of society and the whole culture of Europe. In addition, to combat the Reformation, the Jesuit order creates schools and universities throughout Europe, the system and philosophy of education of which have become the foundation of almost all educational institutions of the modern world.

Thus, in addition to natural laziness, a person from childhood receives the mindset that intellectual work is associated with something sublime, spiritual and worthy of honor, while physical work is the lot of the plebeians.

AND third reason follows from the second and, in turn, fixes it even more strongly in our consciousness. This happens as follows: the child is lazy to work intellectually and does not study well at school (or he has been discouraged from studying), as a result, he grows up as a person incapable of intellectual work, self-learning and self-development. A low level of intelligence, a small vocabulary, a low culture - the only prospect is unskilled or low-skilled physical labor.

Looking at such a person, people usually confuse cause and effect and are affirmed in the opinion that physical labor does not contribute to mental and moral development and, in general, to the growth of a person as a person. Below we will see that in fact, with the right approach, everything is just the opposite.

Overall Benefits of Physical Activity

Today, more and more scientists say that playing sports helps us.

Useful practical result

And, by the way, about usefulness. The bottom line, which can be beneficial to you personally and to others, is another benefit of physical labor.

If the result of sports exercises is the health of the body and mind, then vegetables and fruits from your own plot, a cozy and beautiful home environment, or even can be added to the results of physical labor.

Solution: love physical labor

What to do now? Give up intellectual work and sports exercises? Of course not. For starters, you can simply take advantage of every opportunity to physically work: from simple digging a ditch to creating masterpiece furniture from strong oak.

Well, and most importantly: if you work without a good attitude, without a creative approach, then it will be impossible to squeeze out all the bonuses. Is it possible to love physical labor? I know from personal experience that it is possible, although not soon and not easy. Think about the benefits it brings, and for free. Usually people pay a lot of money for various trainings, but here we get training for the muscles, for the brain, for the character, and even with a useful external result. You do as you wish, but I rushed off to cultivate the vineyard.

The question is rhetorical. It is not easy to answer it, and at the same time, everyone knows for himself the answer to how an ordinary person can maintain health, which he himself came up with, based on his own life experience. All people think about maintaining health, even those who, it would seem, deliberately destroy themselves with bad habits, such as smoking, alcohol, drug addiction, it seems to them that they know how to maintain health for an ordinary person. Smokers choose cigarettes that are less harmful, as they believe, to their body or use various special filters that absorb toxic substances. They also think they know how to keep an ordinary person healthy. Drinkers choose drinks that are better absorbed by their bodies. Drug addicts try not to exceed the dose of the drug in order to maintain their health and the opportunity to live “high” for a longer time. Even drug addicts believe that they have an idea about how an ordinary person can maintain health.

Everyone understands that it is necessary to maintain health in order to be able to live a full life longer. Of course, everyone determines the usefulness for himself. But for a person who has lost his health (because he used to think that he knows how to maintain health for an ordinary person), life no longer brings joy. He does not live, but suffers himself and torments those around him.
So how can an ordinary person stay healthy? With such bad habits as alcoholism, smoking and drug addiction, it seems clear that they undermine health. Most sane people agree with this, even those who are prone to these vices, and have not thought before about how an ordinary person can maintain health. But with other life principles it is more difficult. Is physical labor good or bad? Most scientists tend to think that it is useful. But people who earn their living by hard physical labor die much earlier. Why?
After all, they simply do not know how to keep an ordinary person healthy. Probably, after all, physical labor is useful in moderation. High calorie food? There are constant debates about it. Is it good for health? On the one hand, from an excess of calories, people begin to suffer from obesity, heart disease and blood vessels. And it seems that a person thinks about how an ordinary person can maintain health, but on the other hand, low-calorie food does not allow the brain to function normally, people's nervous reactions decrease, and the hormonal background worsens. Recently, the fashion for weight loss has led to the fact that many girls began to deliberately refuse food and get sick from it, to lose the opportunity to have children. What about sports? Does it help keep you healthy? It's also an ambiguous question. Within reason, of course, yes. But professional athletes who earn their living from sports often suffer from injuries and occupational diseases, which, of course, is not conducive to maintaining health. Although they know how to keep an ordinary person healthy. As for medicines and various dietary supplements, they should be used if you are already sick, but you don’t need to get carried away. Only those people who have never thought about the question “how to maintain health for an ordinary person” are fond of. , and sports and nutrition should be in reasonable doses.So, we wish you to look for and know information about how to keep an ordinary person healthy!