While experts caution that overwork is contributing to the early start of lifestyle diseases, they did advise youth to learn how to balance hard work with a good diet, enough sleep, and regular exercise.
A 70-hour work week, according to some medical professionals, would be “far too ambitious.” They advised team leaders to divide work among members optimally and “not try to extract too much work from an individual,” since this frequently results in physical or psychological burnout.
Their remarks follow the recent suggestion by N R Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, that young people should work seventy hours a week in order to increase the production of the nation.
On social media, some people criticized Murthy’s comments for supposedly encouraging a culture of “overwork,” while others applauded them.
Physicians in Delhi issued a warning that lifestyle disorders like diabetes and cervical spondylitis were developing earlier as a result of overwork.
According to them, consuming junk food, alcohol, and smoking at work or home all have a negative impact on their health and exacerbate existing conditions.
Senior consultant in internal medicine at Apollo Hospital in Delhi, Dr. Suranjit Chatterjee, stated: “Working hard doesn’t mean sacrificing or neglecting your health. While working hard is admirable, one should also prioritize their health in order to achieve their goals.
The doctor opined that a regimen of 70 hours per week would be “far too ambitious, I feel, and 60 hours per week with a balanced and optimised lifestyle” would be the better course of action.
“Many people work hard and then resort to eating junk food or smoking at regular intervals, of course, having this myth that it is helping them de-stress, but it’s not, it’s only making their health even worse,” Chatterjee explained.
Reasoning that ‘I can afford it, so I will do it’, some turn to binge drinking and going out often. He warned that in order to advance professionally without jeopardizing one’s health, this mindset must shift.
The senior physician counseled young people to resist peer pressure and strike a balance between their aspirations and a healthy diet and lifestyle.
He continued, “Overwork is a major cause of the many cases of physical or mental burnout that have occurred.”
Ambition is beneficial to the workplace, the nation, and an individual can work for as long as ten hours a day “while ensuring health is not compromised,” according to Chatterjee.
During the first episode of 3one4 Capital’s podcast ‘The Record,’ Murthy spoke with former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai that young people need to work more hours in order to compete with developed countries.
India has some of the lowest rates of labor productivity worldwide. He compared India to China, Japan, and Germany and said, “Unless we increase our work productivity, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress.”
Ola Cabs CEO Bhavish Aggarwal also posted, stating, “I completely concur with Mr. Murthy’s opinions. We shouldn’t be taking this opportunity to relax and work less. Instead, this is our chance to fully commit and construct in a single generation what other nations have taken many decades to create.”
