Picking your first job might be more important than you think. When it comes to your first job and heart disease, is there a connection? Let’s find out.
When you look for your first job, you’re usually worried about finally making some money and having additional responsibilities. However, according to scientists in the UK, your early employment experiences have an impact on your long-term heart health.
Researchers found that college and job-related stress during the late teens and early 20s may predict heart troubles later on. Furthermore, they say that early experiences in the workplace have a stronger link to heart health in your 40’s than your current job.
As part of their study, researchers looked at 12,000 people’s health records, job types, unemployment periods, and more. Subsequently, they compared these results to each person’s cardiovascular risk factors (blood pressure, cholesterol levels, waist circumference) at age 46.
“Measuring socioeconomic position in early adulthood has always been difficult as this is a period of transition when most people’s occupations change over time,” says Professor Kate Tilling. “The method we’ve developed provides a flexible way to identify early adulthood socioeconomic position.”
Stress in the Workplace
The ones who had better cardiovascular health in their 40s were young workers who spent a longer time in school. Afterward, they quickly went into a managerial or professional role as a young adult.
However, the findings suggest that economic factors during middle age don’t have as much an impact on heart health. In fact, the researchers suggest that we need to pay more attention to stress, depression, and demands on young employees.
“We found that an individual’s education and employment experiences in early adulthood had a far larger impact on measures of cardiovascular health more than twenty years later than their occupation or income at that time did,” says Dr. Eleanor Winpenny, one of the authors.
“These results suggest that we need to provide more support for young adults to allow healthy development into middle age and prevent disease in later life. Given the added disadvantage to young adults as a result of the current coronavirus pandemic, there is an urgent need to understand and mitigate the effect these circumstances may be having on their future health.”
The Outlook
Taking care of your heart health is not something you wait to do until you start having health problems. Instead, it should be something you need to be on top of at an early age.
Finding ways to deal with stress and depression in a healthy way can help improve your overall health. If you want to boost your heart health in a more direct way, you can exercise regularly and eat healthily.
Moreover, you can take supplements like L-arginine Plus to promote your blood pressure health along with your energy levels. Try L-arginine Plus along with stress management techniques, healthy eating, and regular workouts to effectively support your heart health.