Hot MedFax

Feeling stressed ?  Take deep breaths.  Close your eyes and imagine your favorite beach spot.  Try to put what you're worrying about out of your mind, think of releasing it like a balloon. Everything fail?  Try playing a video game. I kid you not.  That's what a new study is saying, according to newswise.com. It doesn't much matter if you're an executive assistant or marketing manager, sitting in an office.  But what if you're a commercial pilot, responsible for hundreds of lives?  Or a surgeon? More than half of Americans regularly experience cognitive fatigue related to stress, frustration, and anxiety while at work. Those in safety-critical fields, such as air traffic control and health care, are at an even greater risk for cognitive fatigue, which could lead to errors, the web site reports.  Given the amount of time that people spend playing games on their smartphones and tablets, a team of human factors/ergonomics researchers decide...

When given a task, who hasn't set about it with great gusto and panache, hoping to get it done quickly? Well now a new study is saying that's not the way to do it. According to newswise.com, real productivity comes when we have an initial push, yes, but then lie back a little. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (figures, right?)  developed a model to gain insight into how workers’ efforts are best distributed over a single workday. The ideal profiles of effort follow one of two patterns, depending on the nature of the work: A high-low-high effort pattern, they found, is the best way to manage fatigue when the  rate  at which the employee works can be modulated. The idea is to begin and end the day with maximum intensity, but take it easier in the middle. But in some jobs, effort cannot be modulated. Workers operating a machine, or attending to customers at a retail store or restaurant, or performing mental tasks that require constant conce...

Now, that's a surprise.  One in four U.S. employees are negatively affected by political talk at work this election season. I've lost (or chosen to lose) two friends for the person they're supporting.  And I can see how discussing that at work could be harmful to my co-workers, and certainly, me (especially if my boss, as is likely, would disagree!).  Younger workers in particular experiencing diminished productivity, more stress, according to newswise.com. This year’s extraordinary presidential campaign is taking a toll on American workers, some of whom report feeling stressed, argumentative and less productive because of political discussions on the job, according to a survey released today by the American Psychological Association. More than 1 in 4 younger employees reported feeling stressed out because of political discussions at work, and more than twice as many men as women said political talk is making them less productive, according to the survey f...

So we live longe r, but less healthier than men.  And now a new study says women's long work hours are linked to alarming increases in cancer and heart disease, according to newswise.com. And it's not just the workaholics who toil for 60 or 70 hours a week.  It's those of us who work 40 hours, as well. Women who put in long hours for the bulk of their careers may pay a steep price: life-threatening illnesses, including heart disease and cancer. Work weeks that averaged 60 hours or more over three decades appear to triple the risk of diabetes, cancer, heart trouble and arthritis for women, according to new research from The Ohio State University. The risk begins to climb when women put in more than 40 hours and takes a decidedly bad turn above 50 hours, researchers found. Women – especially women who have to juggle multiple roles – feel the effects of intensive work experiences and that can set the table for a variety of illnesses and disability,” says All...

Unemployed? Desperate for a job?  Go to a therapist. Well, not really.  But a new study has found that people who use the cognitive skills often taught in therapy can help in landing a new job. Unemployed people were more likely to land a job if they used skills commonly taught as part of cognitive therapy for depression,according to newswise.com. These skills included identifying negative thoughts and countering them with more positive responses and planning enjoyable activities to improve mood. This study is the first to show that cognitive behavioral (CB) skills not only predict changes in depression symptoms, but also real-life functioning, says Daniel Strunk, co-author of the study and associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State University. Searching for a job is difficult in any circumstance, but it may be even more difficult for people who are depressed,” Strunk says. “But we found that there are specific skills that can help not only manage ...

It doesn't take a genius to figure this out but challenging work tasks may be a good thing for our brain. Duh, right?  But a new study has found that professionals whose jobs require more speaking, developing strategies, conflict resolution and managerial tasks may experience better protection against memory and thinking decline in old age than their co-workers, according to a new study published in the April 29 issue of the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our study is important because it suggests that the type of work you do throughout your career may have even more significance on your brain health than your education does,” says study author Francisca S. Then, PhD, with the University of Leipzig in Germany, at newswise.com. “Education is a well-known factor that influences dementia risk.”  So much for crossword puzzles and exercise! For the study, 1,054 people over the age of 75 were given tests that measured their memory and thinking...

Have you ever had a boss who shamed or intimidated you?  It's probaby pretty hard to get through a career without at least one.  I had mine back in my 30s, and to this day, his name can usher up feelings of powerlessness and anger. I never retaliated in any way (remember, I'm a good girl), but now a new study is saying that, if you have a boss who is hostile to you, your best bet is to fight him back, which, of course goes against just about any advice usually given by recruiters and job coaches. Only once in my life did I have a boss who just didn't like me.  I suppose I brought it on myself, even though I thought I was doing the right thing.  I was not long out of college (and a little wet behind the ears, I admit), but when I was working for a major corporation (with rigid protocols), I asked my boss' boss if he had any work I could do because I was sitting idle. The only problem was the manager sandwiched in between us -- my immediate boss....

How's this for a shock? A new study has found that your spouse's personality -- not yours -- influences your career success. Now, I love my husband but he is absent-minded (maybe only with me) and sometimes helpless (he'll kill me when he reads this) and forget about details.  He once asked me how to turn on the oven (you press a button). I realize that a lot of this is just men stuff -- you know, pretend you don't know how to do it so she'll do it, and I know we, at least I, am not very good at reinforcing when he does it right.  I can't stand the way he unloads the dishes from the dishwasher (usually in the wrong cabinet so I can never find them), or vacuum the family room (how can he keep missing that corner)?  And, I admit, I pick on him for it, so why should he want to help out?   At least he does his own laundry! But the study found that as people spend more and more time in the workplace (and these days it feels like we live there), it’s natural f...

What does it take to ratchet your way up to CEO?  Luck?  Skill?  Talent? Prepare to be disappointed.  It's work .  Work hard.  Work, work.  And never stop. Or so says Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, at smartplanet.com. Pfeffer examined the habits of over 150 successful writers, artists and scientists. Pritchett writes in his findings that "the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing," Charlie Osborne writes. In total, most clocked in 60 - 65 hours of work a week. What's one of the biggest ways to succeed? Learning how to say 'no' is a key skill that most successful people master, according to Osborne. Guess what? It's luck. What's that old saying? Success is where luck and talent meet? Something like that. "Hard work and saying no are all good and well, but how do you explain the lucky breaks that successful people seem to have? According to author of 'The Luck...

What if success wasn't about doing your best, and beating out everyone else?  But about giving. That's the theory of Wharton professor Adam Grant, who believes that "givers (who help others without selfish motivation), takers (who take without giving in return) and matchers (who strive for equal trades) can affect our success – both as individuals and at the corporate level." Christina Hernandez Sherwood writes at smartplanet.com that "Evidence suggests that in sales, givers begin with 6 percent lower revenue than takers and matchers. But by the year's end, givers finish with 68 percent higher revenue." Why is this so? Grant tells Sherwood that he's noticed a funny thing about the students who come to him: they're not so concerned about making money as they are about doing something for the world.  Giving back. "I started to notice that the most successful people I knew didn’t wait to start giving until they were successful. They ga...

Love it.  So this is what some employers're thinking should be your routine for the day.  Really. Check what? That's right.  A survey has found that "'homing from work' may be the key," according to smartplanet.com.  New research by digital media firm Captivate Network shows that "merging work and your personal life in office hours may be the best method to not only maintain a better work-life balance, but also increase productivity while you're at your desk." I remember trying to sneak onto msnbc.com (and yes, QVC, for the Today's Special Value, just might have that sheet set that I need), when I worked at a desk in an office.  Then employers switched to software that could track your every move so I had to stop.  (Strangely enough, working from home, I never check either!) smartplanet.com notes that the company compared answers given in a survey this year to one two years previously. As a result, "There was an 11 percent incre...

Don't you wish you lived in France?  They just passed a law there making it illegal for your boss to text, email or call you after-hours. According to Alan Cleaver at smartplanet.com, "A new agreement between employers and labor unions now makes it illegal for managers to contact staff about 'work-related matters' outside of standard business hours." Think about it.  No more vacations spent listening at the beach for the ding of a text or the buzz of your cell. No more cancelled dinners out with your spouse to work on a critical report that came up right before you left the office.  No more conference calls at 2 a.m. because your superiors work in another country. Ah, paradise! Employees must have "the opportunity to disconnect from remote communication tools at their disposal," according to the agreement, Cleaver reports. "In other words, for businesses to comply with working hour rules, staff must have the option to turn their devices off...

So what's the most productive workday?  Monday, when everyone's fresh from two days off?   Wednesday, hump day, when the week's half-over?  If you guessed Tuesday , you'd be right. That's because, Tyler Falk quotes  Max Messmer , Accountemps chairman,   "Many workers spend Monday catching up from the previous week and planning the one ahead . On Tuesday, employees may begin to have time to focus on individual tasks and become more productive." Falk notes that  Tuesday was thought to be the most productive day by 39 percent of HR managers, while Thursday and Friday tied as the least productive days with three percent each (Monday received 24 percent and Wednesday received 14 percent). Now I don't know about you but Tuesday's not my best day of the week.  I'm still in a slump from Monday, which I find depressing.  By hump day, I'm starting to recover.  Thursday is a happy day because it's only one day away from Friday -- and the ...

We're known for looking down on Canada (see: South Park, "Blame it on Canada," and what about that mayor of Toronto?). But did you know that Canadians, and people living in the Netherlands, love their jobs, and we don't? According to a new Monster and GfK  study , which surveyed 8,000 people about how much they liked their jobs, we come in 4th out of  7th, followed by the Brits, the French and Germans hating their jobs most.  Tyler Falk reports that it's no surprise -- the World Economic Forum looked at the the nations investing most in the health, education and talent of their work forces and the two countries were in the top 10. Slightly less than half the workers in the U.S. like their jobs . In Canada, 64% like their jobs, according to yahoo.com. But, he notes, "In the same study, India, which had the third happiest workers in the Monster survey ranked 78th and the United States, with the most workers who hate their jobs came in 16th." Why?...

I thought I was the only one.  I opted out of the career world when I had my son, 12 years ago, and after 25 years of supporting myself (even in marriage), I suddenly had to ask my husband for money, a humiliating and devastating thing for me. Now Judith Warner writes that many high- and mid-level executives have had the same experience when they decided to put their careers aside to raise their children.  Reporting Sunday in The New York Times magazine, she writes, "The women of the opt-out revolution left the work force at a time when the prevailing ideas about motherhood idealized full-time, round-the-clock, child-centered devotion." In 2000 almost 40% of women in a survey said mothers working outside the home were harmful to children. So, many of us left the workforce in droves, and were happy, for a while. But for those of us who opted out, another survey was finding that the very mothers who had chosen to stay home with their kids were more depressed and in worse ...

Amazon.  Google.  Family Dollar Stores Inc. New York Mutual Life Insurance Company. What do these companies have in common?  Not what you think.  They're companies with the least loyal employees, according to a story at smartplanet.com. The story adds that it's not just unhappy employees leaving.  Even at companies where employees have the longest tenure (20 years, Eastman Kodak Co.), 55% are not satisfied in their jobs. And what's leading the reason band-wagon?  You'll never believe it.  The economy.  “As the economy continues to improve, jobs will become more plentiful,” said Katie Bardaro, lead economist for PayScale, as reported at smartplanet.com. “This creates options for people with in-demand skills, and the chance that top performers will jump ship increases. In this environment, companies will need to evaluate what causes employees to leave and improve these areas, such as pay, work environment, vacation policies, etc., before loya...

Well, maybe a little.  But a new study just out says workers 60 and older (I'll be there soon) are earning more than their younger counterparts.  Now, I hope that doesn't mean at Burger King! According to smartplanet.com, "Older workers are more educated, more productive, and make more money than ever before. And with the increasing numbers of Baby Boomers hitting age-60 mark, these trends are only going to accelerate." Wish I could say I'd seen it.  I've been out of work for about six months and though there are some bright spots on the horizon, I must confess that I'm pretty cagey about my past experience.  I've even, I hate to admit it, lied about my college graduation and first job dates. But recently I had an interview that went well (we'll see) and I was overjoyed to see that one of the people interviewing me was at least as old as me.  (Of course, the executive above her looked about 20!) I, too, used to think people in their 60s sh...

I knew it.  After my son was born I stopped working.  I felt lonely and depressed and put it down to being home all day with a needy baby, locked in the house (except for my morning run, which, thankfully, he didn't mind accompanying me on, in the jogger stroller -- not that he had any choice!). But over time, as he got more independent, learned to crawl, then walk, then amuse himself with Duplos and Legos, I was still depressed. It wasn't post-partum depression (well, maybe a little).  But it was because I had lost who I was. Before Phillip, and even after, my work was my life.  If I wasn't working, I didn't feel productive.  Or, worth anything.  Yes, the miracle of birth, yah, yah, yah, and I'd waited many heartbreaking years for this child.  But it just wasn't enough. Yesterday, in an op-ed in the Sunday Review, I finally saw why.  Writing for The New York Times, Stephanie Coontz revealed that studies have shown that women who stay at hom...

Can you believe researchers actually study this?  But they do.  And it's a fast-growing, lucrative area of science. Molly Petrilla at smartplanet.com recently interviewed a psychologist,  Sonja Lyubomirsky , who has written several books about this, and how she herself tries to keep, well, happy. One of the first topics Lyubomirsky talks about (can she really be happy with that name?) is the fact that there's no such thing as a dream job. Sorry to disappoint you all out there but what makes people happy in their jobs is excitement and passion, and that only lasts so long. "We’re not hard-wired to be passionate and excited all the time. In fact, we probably wouldn’t want to be because it would be hard to get things done. But our expectations are way too high. I talk in the (new) book (The Myths of Happiness) about a lot of people who are constantly in search of the ‘dream job.’ And there is no dream job," Lyubomirsky tells Petrilla in their interview. The psych...

Well, not really.  It's not the tweeting that does it, but the distraction -- and disruption -- it brings to your day.  And the Instagraming, Facebooking, iTubing, Pinteresting, etc. According to Bob Sullivan at The New York Times, each time our cell phone rings, or a text tings, or an email pops up on the screen, it interrupts the task we're working on. He noted that Gloria Mark, of the University of California, Irvine,  found  that "it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interruption." But worse, no one really knows the quality of work "done during these periods of rapid toggling." And what's been found to have an even bigger effect on disruption is the anticipation that a call or email or text might come in. Sullivan and his staff conducted three tests on volunteers sitting in labs to perform a cognitive skills test.  One group simply completed the test but the second group was interrupted while the third was ...