Can you really die from merely overworking?

[Hooked]

I've been working 70+ hour weeks, 7 days a week for about 6.5 months now. Fatigue is a constant companion, but I don't feel sick. I don't know how I'd feel after doing this for a year, though. It absolutely grinds you down over time; I feel consistently more tired and drained now than I did three months ago.

Yeah that's called burnt out. Its not stress though, its fatigue.

[Revi]

You can die from lots of stuff caused by stress, but you can't die "from work" directly unless there's an accident. You could also die from physical labor triggering an existing condition, don't know if you think that counts.

[Zvinny]

I've been working 70+ hour weeks, 7 days a week for about 6.5 months now. Fatigue is a constant companion, but I don't feel sick. I don't know how I'd feel after doing this for a year, though. It absolutely grinds you down over time; I feel consistently more tired and drained now than I did three months ago.

On my last deployment to the mideast, we did port and starboards, which means you stood six hours of watch, did six hours of work, and then stood another six hours of watch, followed by 6 hours of "you" time, which everyone slept on. We did that for 9 months, and the only kid who broke was a mommas boy straight from boot camp. it makes me chuckle when I hear college kids complain about their schedules.

[PizzaSHARK]

Yeah that's called burnt out. Its not stress though, its fatigue.

Yes, but you're getting burned out because of the constant slow burn of stress. You don't get days off to relax and unwind and let go for a bit, so it slowly accumulates... which results in burn out, due to the gradual accumulation of stress.

[Hooked]

Yes, but you're getting burned out because of the constant slow burn of stress. You don't get days off to relax and unwind and let go for a bit, so it slowly accumulates... which results in burn out, due to the gradual accumulation of stress.

Then you go to the bar with the rest of the people who have trouble coping and deal with it. The same person may have gotten stressed from anything they did later in life. Maybe they are just built like that?. This problem is as old as time itself. As a man 90% of your life will be suffering, 10% fun. Enjoy the 10%.

[PizzaSHARK]

Then you go to the bar with the rest of the people who have trouble coping and deal with it.

Alcoholism isn't really a very good way of dealing with anything.

[Tzalix]

Alcoholism isn't really a very good way of dealing with anything.

Well, you know what they say. Alcohol is only a temporary solution... If you stop drinking, that is.

[Zvinny]

Alcoholism isn't really a very good way of dealing with anything.

Alcoholism sure isn't a way to deal with a problem, but alcohol used responsibly sure is.

[Raelbo]

Humans are built for stress, that's why we are so advanced.

Yes stress is a useful tool. Our stress response enables us to draw on our reserves and pushes us to perform exceptionally. The point of stress is to be able to operate well above our normal capabilities for a short period of time in order to survive specific events that confront us.

However, we are not built to operate continually under stress. Stress works for us when it is done in short bursts. When we try to keep pushing ourselves for long periods of time it starts to damage our bodies and that damage can kill us.

Think of Usain Bolt. When he runs the 100m he puts his body and mind under severe stress...for 10 seconds. During a sports event he will do this several times over a few days. But after that his body will have time to rebuild its reserves for the next event.

If he tried running a half marathon at his sprint pace, and forced himself to keep it up for that long, it would kill him. This is why the human body won't actually let us do such things - it's why, in reality, if he tried something like that he would pass out after a few hundred meters.

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Yeah that's called burnt out. Its not stress though, its fatigue.

Fatigue and burnout are the result of operating under stress for a prolonged length of time.

[Hooked]

Yes stress is a useful tool. Our stress response enables us to draw on our reserves and pushes us to perform exceptionally. The point of stress is to be able to operate well above our normal capabilities for a short period of time in order to survive specific events that confront us.

However, we are not built to operate continually under stress. Stress works for us when it is done in short bursts. When we try to keep pushing ourselves for long periods of time it starts to damage our bodies and that damage can kill us.

Think of Usain Bolt. When he runs the 100m he puts his body and mind under severe stress...for 10 seconds. During a sports event he will do this several times over a few days. But after that his body will have time to rebuild its reserves for the next event.

If he tried running a half marathon at his sprint pace, and forced himself to keep it up for that long, it would kill him. This is why the human body won't actually let us do such things - it's why, in reality, if he tried something like that he would pass out after a few hundred meters.

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Fatigue and burnout are the result of operating under stress for a prolonged length of time.

That person may be at fault though for choosing an occupation strictly for the money. If I want to be an artist and end up with a job cleaning toilets to pay the bills, im not going to be happy.

[Raelbo]

That person may be at fault though for choosing an occupation strictly for the money. If I want to be an artist and end up with a job cleaning toilets to pay the bills, im not going to be happy.

I cannot figure out how this response relates to my post, sorry.

[vep]

I mean, I dunno... It's your word against an entire professional league's word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZLeAkwtF_U

That is real training, mate.

[Raelbo]

Since this is, after all, a WoW forum, I think a WoW analogy is appropriate.

Think of healing in WoW. It is possible to achieve a sustainable healing output that results in your manabar never going down. However it is possible to pump a lot more healing by spending more mana than you can regenerate. This is a healer operating under stress.

There are times when a healer will need to start burning through their manapool just to keep the raid/team alive and that is fine. However, try keeping this up for too long and the healer will run dry of mana. At that point if the healer needs to draw on their reserves (mana) to get through a period of intense damage they will not be able to and the result will be a wipe.

Our bodies have all sorts of reserves that work just like manabars. Things like adrenalin and blood sugar levels are obvious examples - but the reality is just about everything in our body is like that. They are kept in reserve for the times we need them, but if we use them all up without giving ourselves time to recuperate, we run the risk of not having them when we need them. With something like blood sugar or oxygen, if we run dry, we die.

Organs, like our hearts, can only take so much strain before they start to take damage. When we're under stress, our bodies release adrenalin, which puts our hearts into a higher output mode. This is something everyone has experienced when you're anxious or nervous about something - it's not just about physical exertion. Our heart drives blood supply which fuels everything in our bodies - muscles, nerves, our brain. So putting our heart into "stress" mode enables us to do everything better - our muscles have more fuel, our responses sharpen up, we can think and react quicker. But remember, as long as our heart is in this mode it is using up its manabar. Run the manabar empty and suddenly our heart can't function, and that is game over.

[poser765]

Fatigue and burnout are the result of operating under stress for a prolonged length of time.

It should also be pointed out that fatigue can most assuredly be a pretty big cause of stress.