“However, policy efforts to tackle the ever-increasing health costs and poor health outcomes in the United States have largely ignored the health effects of psychosocial workplace stressors such as high job demands, economic insecurity, and long work hours”, the researchers noted.

According to a study conducted by researchers at Harvard Business School and Stanford University, stress as workplace could be as harmful to your health as secondhand smoking.

Joel Goh, the study’s co-author and assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School said, “When you think about how much time individuals typically spend at work, it’s not that surprising”, per CNN.

“The results of our meta-analysis show that workplace stressors generally increased the odds of poor health outcomes to approximately the same extent as exposure to secondhand smoke”, said the study.

The report-which is actually a compilation of 228 other studies-indicates that high job demands actually increase the odds of illness by 35 percent and that long working hours can increase chances of early death by almost 20 percent.

While the above guidelines can help reduce stress, effective communication with your employer can work wonders. You may as well be breathing in secondhand cigarette smoke, a new study suggests. Thinking through how you would respond if you were laid off can help you feel more prepared and less stressed. One of the stresses can be the thought of losing a job, but that worry may be paranoia rather than reality.

However, they also said that not focusing on the amount of stress they are taking or the causes behind it could be harmful to their health. Ask yourself if your job is really in jeopardy, or if it’s just something you’ve concocted in your head. It may not be your job, but an individual who’s causing problems, and you need to think about better ways of dealing with him or her.

Assess your job status. Psychologist Joanna Lipari noticed that patients who enjoy their job deal with stress better than those who dreaded work. Tell your boss you can’t work a 12-hour day, but explain how you will complete your responsibilities in an eight-hour day. Asking fellow employees for their perspectives could help. “Make it about being project-oriented, not time-oriented”, Lipari says.