The wellness agenda is surprisingly uncluttered, says Dr. W. Smith Chandler in California Employment Law Answers. We can break it down, he says, by asking a simple question: “Why do people die?”
The answer is not as complex as people think, Chandler maintains. He explains that 40 percent of all Americans die of cardiovascular diseases, primarily heart attack and stroke. And 90 percent of those deaths happen at a young age.
The process that leads to all this illness often starts surprisingly early in life. A lot of teenagers already have the beginnings of what will become coronary artery disease, Chandler explains. And that means that it’s never too early to become interested in wellness. The workplace is one of those venues along the way.
Wellness Is Mostly About Decreasing Cardiovascular Risk Factors
The good news is, we now know the risk factors that cause cardiovascular disease, and we’re better at controlling them. Although there are a lot of risk factors, the major ones that you can do something about in the workplace are smoking, elevated cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, and lack of physical exercise.
Depending on their severity, each of these factors can increase cardiovascular death by up to 50 percent. That means the reverse is also true: Regular exercise can reduce cardiovascular death And if a person controls all of the risk factors, it’s exceedingly unlikely that he or she will die of the diseases that kill almost half of us.
And it gets better. Cardiovascular wellness also helps people to live better, so it increases quality of life, not just quantity of life.
For instance, says Chandler, “starting at about age 35, you get a little bit stupider every year. (‘I’m 53, so I can say that,’ he quips.) I’m not talking about wisdom, but rather raw intellectual power like the ability to memorize a series of numbers. If a person has an excellent cardiovascular risk profile, there’s still a gradual decline in intellectual capacity, but the slope of the decline is cut in half.”
You Forget What It Is Like to Feel Good
When you’re young, Chandler points out, feeling good is free. You can abuse your body relentlessly, and still feel happy and energetic. As the years pass, this situation changes, but it changes so slowly that most people hardly notice it. They actually forget what it’s like to truly feel good. As you age, if you want to continue to feel good, you’ve got to earn it, he declares. The main risk factor that influences this effect is exercise.
Exercise also has additional benefits: Increasing joint discomfort often starts around age 50. This problem particularly impacts office workers, who move about very little. Exercise, especially yoga, is really good for this problem. In fact, yoga can be as effective as drug therapy for joint discomfort, Chandler says.
Or take depression. Depression is extremely common and is especially relevant to productivity at work. Exercise, again, can be as effective as drug therapy for depression, Chandler says. (He notes, however, that he’s not criticizing medications—they are often helpful, even when lifestyle is perfect.)
So summing up, there are lots of good reasons to actively pursue wellness in the workplace.