NicholasGrey.net

How many hours a day do you work? My magic number is 8. For those who work more than 8 hours a day, you might want to rethink your decision and decide if the paycheck is worth your mental health.

A study conducted over six years with over 2,000 British civil servants has shown that individuals who work more than 8 hours a day are 2.5 times more likely to develop depression.

Even when how demanding each job was is taken into consideration, the number one determinant of whether or not a worker would develop depression was related to how many hours they worked each day.

Interestingly (but not surprisingly), workers who were higher up on the corporate hierarchy were less likely to develop depression, regardless of the hours they worked.

Researchers hypothesize that the reason longer work hours are a factor in depression is because of the strain that they can place on marital and other family relationships. Also, longer hours have been shown to produce greater levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.

Here is a list of the jobs that have the highest rates of depression among employees:

10. Salespeople—A lot of the time salespeople are paid on commission, meaning that they never know exactly how much they are going to bring home each paycheck.

9. Financial Advisors and Accountants—Yikes! My spouse falls into this category. Dealing with numbers and other people’s fortunes must be very stressful things to think about all day long.

8. Maintenance and Grounds Workers—When was the last time you called a maintenance or grounds worker? Was it when something was broken? Apparently the stresses of this career are very difficult.

7. Administrative Support Staff—This is one of those jobs where the lower people on the totem pole have to take all of the heat that they have no control over. This would be an incredibly stressful job.

6. Teachers—Overworked and underpaid. Not to mention dealing with wild and crazy children or teenagers all day long. This one I understand.

5. Artists, Entertainers, and Writers—Sparse paychecks, unpredictable hours, and an uncertain future. Need I say more?

4. Healthcare Workers—This would be the category that I fall into. Unsurprisingly, many healthcare workers work long hours and deal with death and illness frequently. If you don’t love your job, it would be hard to remain optimistic in this field.

3. Social Workers—Dealing with unhappy families and abused, troubled children do not make for a stress-free environment. Often, the demands placed on social workers make many of them change professions after only a few years.

2. Food Service Staff—What percent do you tip at restaurants? I usually give 15%, but only if the quality of service is amazing. Others have different answers, however, meaning that income is unpredictable. It is understandable that this job comes in at number two.

1. Nursing Home or Childcare Workers—This is a very thank-less job that demands patience and a lot of dirty work. I have worked at a nursing home, so I can definitely understand how this comes in at number 1.

If you work in one of these fields and work more than 8 hours a day, it might be time to rethink your workday!

Hi, my name is Nick and these are my legs (Okay... these aren't really my legs. I only wish they were.)

One thing that I see all of the time is athletes coming in complaining about shin splints. For anyone who has ever had shin splints, you know what a major pain they are.

For most cases of shin splints, there are only a few things that I can really do: prescribe rest from high-impact, repetitive activities. Or activity… There really only is one activity that is the culprit behind shin splints: running.

Running is one of those activities that I have a love/hate relationship with. I love it when I finish a long run, but at 5am when I leave my house for a morning run before work, I might actually hate it. It really only takes a few minutes for that feeling to leave, but there definitely are moments when it is not my favorite.

I have been running for years and have proudly told The Unlucky that unlike them, I have never had shin splints.

But last week, something changed. I started to feel a dull aching throb develop in my posterior tibia (inner shin bone). I thought that maybe I had bumped my leg on something, but after a few days, it became clear that I had joined the ranks of The Unlucky.

So now, feeling a lot more sympathetic with those who have a shin splint problem, I’ll offer some advice to those of you dealing with this maddening injury.

First, it is important to understand how shin splints develop. Most of the time they develop because athletes ramp up their mileage or intensity too quickly for the body to adapt healthily.

Another common reason is footwear that was not designed for your body’s unique needs. A lot of times running shoes have been used for far too long for them to effectively protect your feet from injury. Replacing your running shoes every 500+ miles is a good rule of thumb.

These problems can cause tiny stress fractures in the tibia or irritation in the lining of the muscle. Once these problems happen, you have shin splints.

The bad news is that if you try to train through the pain, you can actually create a full-on fracture in your leg, which will halt your training for much longer than you would like.

So now that we know how shin splints develop, let’s talk about what can be done to get rid of them.

The best solution is rest. It is maddeningly difficult to stop your training (trust me, I know), but it is the only real solution that will help your body to heal and get you on your feet again.

I recommend about two weeks of rest. But this doesn’t mean sitting on your couch doing nothing but watching Sports Center… Make sure that you maintain your fitness doing low-impact activities like swimming or biking.

After those two weeks, you can get back to your training, but make sure to take it slow! You don’t want to get re-injured and start back at square one.

So happy healing to all you members of The Unlucky Club out there! I feel your pain. Literally.