Good sleep and a proper diet could help reduce chronic stress caused by work – but exercise may not

When work gets stressful, the standard advice is familiar: exercise more, eat better, sleep more and cut back on unhealthy habits. But our new research study suggests not all healthy habits offer the same protection from chronic work stress.

Using data over 10 years from a long-running national survey of 2,871 Canadian workers, we examined whether five health-related behaviours outside work helped weaken the relationship between work stress and general health over time: nutrition, exercise, sleep quality, alcohol use and smoking frequency.

What we found was more uneven – and more interesting – than the usual wellness advice suggests. Some behaviours appeared to offer real stress-specific protection. Others were linked to health overall, but did not seem to buffer the effects of work stress specifically.

Some habits protect; others don’t

Sleep quality stood out most clearly. Nutrition also mattered. Exercise remained good for health overall, but did not buffer the health effects of work stress in the same way once the other behaviours were considered together.

For many workers, work stress is chronic. It builds through heavy workloads, difficult or unpredictable schedules, after-hours emails and text messages, and the feeling that work keeps spilling into evenings, weekends and family time.

Over time, that kind of stress can wear people down physically and psychologically. Research...

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