Commuters often suffer from mental health problems

Commuters overly affected by mental disorders

08/16/2012

The ever-increasing demands on workers, such as constant accessibility and absolute mobility, often lead to overwork. In order to get their jobs or to start a new job, working people take longer and longer journeys to work, frequent relocations and overtime in purchasing. In the long term, this restriction of privacy leads to mental complaints among many commuters. Headache, feelings of exhaustion, stress, depression and insomnia are typical signs of occupational overuse.

Mental complaints due to overtime and long journeys to work
„Of course I'll jump in if it gets tight at the weekend“, reported commuter Stefan Wertheim from Hannover. The 43-year-old family man is a clerical employee at a shipping company in Hamburg. „stand in“ For him, not only an additional one and a half to two hours drive to the workplace in the Hanseatic city, but also less time to spend with the children, the wife and friends. „I can only recover on vacation“, tells Wertheim „When I get home at around 8.30pm, I am so exhausted that I only eat something and then fall into bed. But we are now thinking about moving to Hamburg. So it can not continue in the long run.“

Like Stefan Wertheim, many workers in Germany suffer. Permanent accessibility via mobile phone or e-mail, long journeys to work and overtime often make working people feel overwhelmed. The scientific institute of the AOK (WIdO) determined in his „Absenteeism Report 2012“, That mental health problems are often the price for the high level of flexibility of many employees. „Flexibility needs its limits“, warns Helmut Schröder, editor of the report and deputy managing director of WIdO, on Thursday in Berlin.

When work and leisure are incompatible, workers suffer from more than twice as many complaints as headaches, fatigue, and depression compared to those with a balanced job „Work-life balance“. Those who often subordinate their private lives to work, postpone appointments and work weekends often can not switch off anymore. The result can be serious mental health problems.

40 percent of the working population are commuters or change their place of residence for the job
Although Schröder also sees benefits for the health of employees, if they can flexibly adapt their work to their needs in terms of time and space, this is seldom true in reality. According to WIdO, more than one out of every three professionals received calls or emails outside of normal working hours or worked overtime within four weeks. One in ten workers take work home and every eighth states that they can not combine their working hours with their free time. Patients suffer more than twice as often from mental health problems as the average. According to WIdO, about 40 percent of employees are weekend commuters, have to travel to work for at least one hour or change their place of residence due to their professional needs. The high degree of flexibility of many working people often avoids unemployment or improves the chances of advancement, but at the same time there is an increase in mental health problems such as exhaustion.

This realisation is not new. Several studies have already pointed to the negative consequences of work commuting and have shown a connection between the subordination of private life to job requirements and mental health problems. In June, the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) presented her „Health Report 2011“ according to which people who often change jobs or residences suffer from mental disorders more frequently than others. A spokeswoman explained at the presentation of the evaluation of the patient data of the TK that mobility and flexibility literally got on people's nerves. As a result, the group of people who had to move from one job to another in the period from 2009 to 2011 experienced almost twice as many absentee days in 2011 as in previous years, with statistically 4.01 sick days. Professionals who stayed at the place of residence and had their jobs in their native area only needed 2.11 days. So the result of TK.

In the future even more distances for commuters to work
According to official statistics of the Bonn Federal Institute for Building, Urban and Spatial Research from 2009, the average distance from the front door to the workplace was last 17 kilometers. Ten years earlier, it was only 14.6 kilometers on average. According to the prognosis of the researchers, an increase of the average distance to the workplace can be expected in the future. At the edges of large urban centers such as Frankfurt or Berlin, the distance is even above average.

For the fall, the coalition has planned to present a strategy for more health prevention. The Union announced its intention to devote more attention to the topic of burn-out. As CDU health expert Willi Zylajew explained, performance pressure and competition often set the tone in companies. (Ag)

Read about:
Common mental illnesses among commuters
Young employees twice as often on sick leave
Back pain is the most common cause of sick leave
More missing days due to mental illness
Burnout syndrome becomes a ticking time bomb
Mental illnesses cause high costs

Picture: Gerd Altmann