--- title: The Hidden Cost of Stress at Work description: Policymakers, employers, and professional organizations have opportunities to design work environments that make us healthier, write Lilly Springer, David Slusky, and Anupam B. Jena. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/07/29/the-hidden-cost-of-stress-at-work/ author: Lilly Springer article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-07-29T10:00:04.497Z article:modified_time: 2026-07-29T10:00:05.279Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Hidden Cost of Stress at Work og:description: Policymakers, employers, and professional organizations have opportunities to design work environments that make us healthier, write Lilly Springer, David Slusky, and Anupam B. Jena. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/07/29/the-hidden-cost-of-stress-at-work/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46c0b92b5fff67a7/6a57af10671e1d0da67a0b52/stress-at-work.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2119 og:image:height: 1192 og:image:alt: stress-at-work.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Hidden Cost of Stress at Work twitter:description: Policymakers, employers, and professional organizations have opportunities to design work environments that make us healthier, write Lilly Springer, David Slusky, and Anupam B. Jena. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46c0b92b5fff67a7/6a57af10671e1d0da67a0b52/stress-at-work.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  IDEAS Time ideas # The Hidden Cost of Stress at Work > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=e1c61e08-c513-464d-a913-e83c277871dd&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Subscribers | 430,000 | TIME, August 2026 | | Open rate | 50.7% | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Sam Jacobs, Editor-in-Chief | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership Globally minded knowledge seekers. Readers who turn to journalism to understand the world, with meaningful concentrations among educators, students, media professionals, civic institutions and knowledge workers. ### TIME Inside TIME: key statements * Inside TIME is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * Inside TIME is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=e1c61e08-c513-464d-a913-e83c277871dd&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/subscribe?i=e1c61e08-c513-464d-a913-e83c277871dd&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What is Inside TIME? Inside TIME is a twice-weekly newsletter written by TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs. It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. It reaches 430,000 subscribers with a 50.7% open rate as of August 2026. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Lilly Springer](https://time.com/author/lilly-springer/), [David Slusky](https://time.com/author/david-slusky/) and [Anupam Jena](https://time.com/author/anupam-b-jena/) Lilly Springer is an economist at American University. David Slusky is an economist at the University of Kansas. Jul 29, 2026 10:00 AM UTC  cyano66—Getty Images by [Lilly Springer](https://time.com/author/lilly-springer/), [David Slusky](https://time.com/author/david-slusky/) and [Anupam Jena](https://time.com/author/anupam-b-jena/) Lilly Springer is an economist at American University. David Slusky is an economist at the University of Kansas. Jul 29, 2026 10:00 AM UTC According to [data](https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html) from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Americans work more hours per year than those in similar countries. Working is, in a sense, an American pastime. Work brings benefits, but it also brings costs. Many jobs are stressful or physically demanding, imposing a toll on both mental and physical health. The question of how work affects our health is incredibly important but hard to answer. Of course, there are some easily understood cases. For example, coal miners face an increased risk in [mortality due to respiratory diseases](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27365122.pdf?casa%5Ftoken=ZDOzRKi3ac4AAAAA:V9MVgX8mRK09TpMlCJzc4zvv75HOF7pxltiESai7DmlhWwE%5FmDRK4f03dYMyooVd4MGe-JdyxGt6r0ztsnX9go1vjbdcurwqJn-WhIhKi2QNcWPdyKVQ), and firefighters are at [increased risk of cancer](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2822%2900390-4/fulltext) from exposure to asbestos. Most of us aren’t mining coal or putting out fires. Our jobs are more mundane, but they may still impact our health. In a recent [study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272726001167) published in the _Journal of Public Economics_, we sought to understand the effect of working in a stressful and physically demanding occupation on our health. We focused on the birth outcomes of mothers who work in two occupations that require extensive education and training: physicians and lawyers. We compared mothers who were physicians to those who were lawyers, since physicians and lawyers have similar years of education, similar income, and similar access to health care. You might expect their birth outcomes to be similar as well. However, while both groups work long hours (physicians more than lawyers in our data), physicians, especially those in hospitals, spend a lot more time working on their feet and are more likely to experience periods of intense stress. This is particularly true in the early years of physician training, where 80-hour work weeks and overnight shifts are common. So, despite the health benefits that tend to come with greater education and wealth, the stress and difficulty of a physician’s work may actually worsen health. We used birth certificate data from Texas, which is one of only a few states that includes the parents’ occupation on the birth certificate. Using these responses, we identified mothers who listed their occupation as a physician or lawyer. For physician mothers, we were also able to determine whether the mother was a surgeon. We found that physician mothers had worse birth outcomes than lawyer mothers. For example, physician mothers were 16% more likely to have a low birth weight infant and were 10% more likely to deliver pre-term. When we looked at surgeons specifically—an analysis motivated by the additional physical exertion and stress that comes with being a surgeon—we found that surgeon mothers had the worst birth outcomes compared to both lawyers and other doctors Importantly, our analysis accounted for the fact that physician mothers tend to have children at later ages, which increases the risk for negative birth outcomes. These findings, while interesting, couldn’t tell us if being a physician itself caused worse birth outcomes. To help answer that part of the question, we used a “natural experiment” that was designed to improve the working environment for some physicians. [Natural experiments](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2781099) are instances in which people are exposed, by chance, to one path or another that allows researchers to study cause and effect (in this case, studying the impact of improved working conditions on health, a question that would be difficult to study in a controlled, randomized study). In 2011, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education enacted a [reform](https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pdfs/jgme-monograph1.pdf) that limited the number of hours that first-year residents (physicians in training) could consecutively work to be less than 16 consecutive hours. The reform was intended to improve the working conditions for first-year residents. Since the work reform only affected physicians, we could compare the birth outcomes of physician mothers to those of lawyer mothers before and after the reform to understand how an improvement in working conditions affected physician mothers’ birth outcomes. (Lawyer mothers should be unaffected.) In addition, because the reform was targeted at first-year residents, we focused on physicians who were 26 to 30 years old at the time the reform was enacted. We found that the work reform improved birth outcomes for these young physician mothers. Compared to babies born to physician mothers _before_ the work reform, babies born to physician mothers _after_ the reform had higher birth weights and a lower chance of being born small for their gestational age. The improvement was concentrated among young surgeon mothers. The reform, as we expected, did not have an effect on lawyer mothers or older physician mothers, whose work hours weren’t subject to the reform. The implications of our study extend beyond physicians. While medicine provides a particularly clear example of a demanding profession, many workers face [long hours](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295797), [physical strain](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00420-012-0763-7), [irregular schedules](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12913-022-08336-0), and [chronic stress](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176658). Our findings suggest that workplace conditions can impact the health of not only workers themselves, but also their children. In other words, the effects of work may reach beyond an individual employee and into the next generation. The improvements in birth outcomes that we observed following the physician work-hour reform demonstrate that negative health outcomes aren’t inevitable. Changes to workplace environments—such as limiting excessively long shifts, which are common among physicians in training—could improve health. This suggests that policymakers, employers, and professional organizations have opportunities to design work environments that make us healthier, whether by limiting excessively long shifts, improving options for greater [physical activity](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12154417/) and healthier [food choices](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6589116/) in the workplace, or reducing [stress](https://www.bmj.com/content/332/7540/521). The connection between work and well-being is often discussed in terms of productivity, burnout, or job satisfaction. Our findings highlight another dimension: the health of future generations. The way we organize work today may have consequences that extend far beyond the workplace itself. [TIME Ideas](https://www.time.com/ideas) hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/29/the-hidden-cost-of-stress-at-work/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/29/the-hidden-cost-of-stress-at-work/"},"headline":"The Hidden Cost of Stress at Work","datePublished":"2026-07-29T10:00:04.497Z","dateModified":"2026-07-29T10:00:05.279Z","description":"Policymakers, employers, and professional organizations have opportunities to design work environments that make us healthier, write Lilly Springer, David Slusky, and Anupam B. Jena.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/29/the-hidden-cost-of-stress-at-work/","keywords":["health"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46c0b92b5fff67a7/6a57af10671e1d0da67a0b52/stress-at-work.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lilly Springer","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/lilly-springer/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"David Slusky","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/david-slusky/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Anupam Jena","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/anupam-b-jena/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46c0b92b5fff67a7/6a57af10671e1d0da67a0b52/stress-at-work.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"stress-at-work.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"cyano66—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/health/","name":"health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/29/the-hidden-cost-of-stress-at-work/","name":"The Hidden Cost of Stress at Work"}}]}] ```