The 50 - hour ( or longer ) week is something Americans wear like a badge of accolade . We one - up each other with longsighted hours at the office , extra time , and packed schedules . Are there even the great unwashed in this macrocosm who function less than 40 hours a workweek ? What do those otiose arse do with all that free prison term , incinerate salvia and make hemp watch bracelet ?
really , they ’re probably much closer to passing that confoundedJeopardy!contestant test than you are – accord toa recent study , people who work fewer hour than the received workweek end up being smart . invest in a ton of hours for The Man is n’t just regretful for your strain levels and common sense of identity ; it really messes with your I.Q. .
Working more than 25 hours a week makes people dumber
research worker want to test the whole " habituate it or fall back it " possibility about working adults – the conventional wisdom says that continuing to hold down a line of work aid people remain sharp as they get old , an argumentation often used to fight back raising the retirement eld .
The event suggest that the surmisal is true … up to a point . Specifically , up to 25 hours per workweek , and cognitive single-valued function really conk downhill when guinea pig worked 40 or more minute a week . So the steadfast American opinion that work longer hours is better for success , genial role , and overall quality of life is totally BS .
In fact , the standard week could be making people dumber . grownup in the US work anaverage of 47 hours a week , which mean we ’re overwork ourselves into a Carry Nation of cretin .
Drew Swantak/Oren Aks/Thrillist
But not working at all isn’t the solution
This is n’t to say that working is all unsound ; cognitive subroutine actuallyimprovedwhen people worked , up to about 25 hour a hebdomad . And the field of study looked at adults 40 long time and older – which is n’t all that old , specially cave in the ever - expanding life expectancy – so if you ’re young , you ’re probably finding other fashion to toss off your cognitive abilities .
The upshot is that while citizenry should n’t completely give up work when they crawl in , even at a comparatively vernal years extravagant work can hasten decline . What ’s more , people who work more than 60 hours a week fare worse cognitively than mass who were n’t working at all . Basically , being unemployed is better than being overwork , intelligence operation - wise . How ’s that for irony !
Do we really desire to make our nation dumber by insist that more workplace is secure ? Would n’t we all be less stressed ( and smarter ) if we founder out morevacation and impose tough overtime principle ?
What does this mean for me, the go-getter who brags to my friends about how much I work?
Stop doing that ! It ’s annoying , and it wo n’t pay off in the recollective run . If you ’re younger than 40 , it may seem like a long way away , but it ’ll come sooner than you cerebrate – and this study did n’t make a conclusion one way or another for adults under 40 , so more inquiry is postulate . The bottom stock is that , if possible , detect some work - life balance that gives you time to rest and recover off from the job .
Does this mean everyone will transmigrate to the three - day workweek ? Tuesday will be the new hump daylight , Wednesday the new Friday . If four full days of sleep in , lazy brunch , and Netflix binges think we ’ll all be smarter , and better - equipped to live long , felicitous spirit , then possibly it ’s time to change our refinement . All in the name of science !
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