The Effects Of Diet And Exercise On Stress And Job Satisfaction

Stress on the job can cause you to become overweight or obese, according to a January 2010 study by Diana Fernandez and colleagues in "Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine." To combat this, diet and exercise seem to have positive results in combating stress and increasing employee satisfaction. Workplace wellness programs that include diet and exercise are popping up around the country for this very reason.

Diet

Fernandez and colleagues surmised that a healthy diet might help the problem of excess weight in a stressful work environment, so they studied how eating fruits and vegetables would affect the participants. However, researchers noted that eating fruits and vegetables every day did not have a measurable effect, although they noted that the study was limited by not studying other healthy foods such as whole grains as well.

Exercise

Exercise might help more than diet. An October 2009 study in "American Journal of Preventive Medicine" discovered that a study group that exercised had lower levels of stress and more job satisfaction than a study group with no exercise. Workplace wellness initiatives helped the employees in the exercise group to include more workouts in their day. Researchers noted that larger, longer studies are needed to confirm these results.

Consequences of Stress

A stressful workplace can be a vicious cycle, because although stress leads to unhealthy eating and not enough exercise, those same habits cause more stress. Work stress can cause coronary heart disease and neuroendocrine problems, according to a January 2008 study in "European Heart Journal." The study explains that about 32 percent of these effects are from poor diet and exercise habits. If you do not exercise enough or do not take in proper nutrition, your mind and body can become stressed, and you might develop a weak immune system and have trouble processing your emotions in a healthy way, notes MedlinePlus.

Considerations

Fernandez and colleagues noted that although workplace wellness initiatives with diet and exercise seem to help employees' stress levels, they are not enough to solve the problem. Researchers noted that above all, employers need to work to make the workplace less stressful in ways such as support from supervisors and changes to job duties. Workers need to feel like they have more control over their jobs and to have fewer demands on them.