By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
This is what a bad boss can do to your health
1296ca97c79cbbcbd63bc16bfa6efd18c3ab7c8e2ddcf7371da20a40744a7ca4
Yeah, you'll probably get sick in your office at some point. But don't blame those lights or the open office floor plan. Blame your boss. - photo by Herb Scribner
Your office job can make you sick. Sometimes its the lights, other times its the floor plan.

Or it can be your boss.

New research from the Harvard Business School and Stanford University found that a bad boss can make you physically ill, almost as if you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, according to Travis Bradberry, co-founder of job recruiting website TalentSmart.

The research, which analyzed more than 200 studies on stress in the workplace, found that worrying about getting fired or laid off can make you 50 percent more likely to face health issues. An overly demanding job also made people 35 percent more likely to get sick, Bradberry wrote. Most of these negative health effects are comparable to ones that cigarette smokers face.

And its these bad bosses who either demand too much of their employees or put their employees in constant fear that they will lose their job.

The report found that 75 percent of workers say their boss is their biggest stress at work, but 59 percent wont leave that manager behind, BBC reported, which can also be a problem.

The problem is that the longer you stay with an abusive boss, the harder it becomes to convince yourself to leave and the bigger the toll it takes on your mind, body, and family, Bradberry wrote. Thats why its important to know how to recognize the signs of a bad boss early on, before youre sucked in so deeply that its hard to leave.

But this isnt exactly a new finding. Researchers have been saying for years that a bad boss can affect ones mental and physical health.

Jonathan D. Quick, a medical instructor at Harvard Medical School, told The Washington Post in 2014 that bad bosses can make your work life hard and cause you to have physical and mental illnesses, like heart attacks, high blood pressure, sleep problems and anxiety.

Bad bosses can also lead employees to pick up bad habits like smoking, excessive alcohol use and overeating, Quick told The Post.

The evidence is clear that the leadership qualities of bad bosses over time exert a heavy toll on employees health, Quick told The Post. The evidence is also clear that despite the rationalizations some leaders may use to defend their stress-inducing, unsupportive style, such behavior by leaders does not contribute to improved individual performance or organizational productivity.

Part of the problem is that bad bosses dont know theyre being bad bosses, Amy Rees Anderson wrote for Forbes. Signs of a bad boss include a lack of vision for the company, they only communicate with a select group of workers, they arent happy with their job and they dont try to inspire employees.

Bad bosses are also known to accept mediocre work. Rather than pushing employees to provide something better, they reward employees based on brownnosing rather than skill and they attack specific people rather than employee performance, she wrote.

You see the difficulty is that most of us judge ourselves by our intentions, while others judge us based on our behavior, Anderson wrote. So the fact is that most bosses may feel they have perfectly good intentions and therefore they justify or disregard their own bad behavior and as a result employees are left to suffer the effects of dealing with a bad boss.

Bad bosses may want to increase communication with employees and develop healthy relationships with them to fix some of these issues, Ray Williams wrote for Psychology Today.

With tough economic times already producing considerable stress for employees in terms of increased workloads and expectations for greater performance, the physical and mental health of employees is of paramount importance, Williams wrote. A key strategy for addressing this issue is ensuring that executives and managers have positive and healthy relationships with employees. The cost is too high to endure any longer, bad bosses.

But what can the employee do, especially when they cant leave their job?

Anderson suggests focusing on their bosses good qualities to make the job seem less stressful. Employees may also want to try behaving like a good leader so that the bad boss can learn from it. It may also be important for a worker to use their time at work as a way to learn lessons about what not to do as a boss, Anderson wrote.

Try to learn the what not to dos from your bad boss until you can work for a good one, Anderson wrote. Chances are that one day you will be a boss, too, and any lessons you learn now will help you to behave better when the mantle of leadership is placed on your shoulders.
Sign up for our E-Newsletters
How to avoid 'sharenting' and other paparazzi parenting habits
ce406c66b9871a104ac24256a687e4821d75680dcfc89d9e5398939543f7f88f
A recent study revealed parents often spend up to two hours staging a single photo of his or her child to post online. - photo by Amy Iverson
Before having kids, some people just dont appreciate their friends baby posts. But after having a child of their own, three fourths of new parents jump right on the parental social media bandwagon. If you have become a member of this group, there are some rules to follow for posting responsibly.

Much of a parents worry is how to teach their children to use social media responsibly. We talk with our kids about privacy, oversharing, and setting restrictions on their devices to keep them safe. But parents themselves need to look in the digital mirror once in a while. Before having children, it doesnt take as much effort to think about what to post online. Its up to us to decide what we share about our own lives. But once you become a parent, there are many questions to think about regarding what is appropriate to post about your kids on social media.

In a recent survey, kids clothing subscription company Mac and Mia surveyed 2000 new parents to find out how they are documenting their kids lives on social media, and what concerns they may have.

First of all, people without children seem to feel a bit differently about the onslaught of baby pictures online than those who are parents. 18 percent of people say before they had kids, they were annoyed by their friends baby posts. But after having children of their own, 73 percent admit they post progress pictures of their little ones every single month.

Not only are new parents letting the world know each time their baby is a month older, but they are posting about their kids every few days or so. Men and women report they post 6-7 times per month about their baby.

And while 70 percent of new parents say the benefit of using social media is how easy it is to help family and friends feel involved, there are some downsides. Here are a few tips to avoid the pitfall of becoming paparazzi parents.

Dont miss the moment

In the Mac and Mia survey, some parents admitted to spending up to two hours to get the perfect shot of their baby. That seems a little extreme. New and old parents alike should be careful about spending so much time taking pictures and videos that they dont enjoy the moment. Years ago, I decided to never live an experience through my phone. A study by Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, found that when people took pictures of objects in an art museum, they didnt remember the objects as well as if they simply observed them.

This photo-taking impairment effect can happen to parents as well. If we are so consumed by getting the perfect photo, we can miss out on the moment all together, and our memory of it will suffer.

Dont forget about privacy

60 percent of couples say they have discussed rules and boundaries for posting their babys photos, according to the Mac and Mia survey. Even so, men are 34 percent more likely to publish baby posts on public accounts. If parents are concerned about their childrens privacy, keeping photos off of public accounts is a given.

In the Washington Post, Stacey Steinberg, a legal skills professor at the University of Florida, and Bahareh Keith, a Portland pediatrician, wrote that sharing too much information about kids online puts them at risk. They write that all that sharenting can make it easier for data thieves to target out kids for identity theft. Check that your privacy settings are where they should be and never share identifying information like full names and birth dates.

Dont be paparazzi parents

36 percent of parents say they take issue when their childs photo is posted online by someone else. Responsible social media users will always ask permission before posting a photo of another child. But parents should also think about whether their own children will take issue with their own posted photos a few years down the road.

When parents are constantly snapping pictures and throwing them on social media, it can be easy to forget to pause and make sure the post is appropriate. I always use the billboard example with my kids. I ask them to picture whatever they are posting going up on a billboard in our neighborhood. If they are okay with that, then their post is probably fine. Parents should ask themselves this same question when posting about their children. But they should also ask themselves if their child would be OK with this post on a billboard in 15 years. If it would cause embarrassment or humiliation, it might be best to keep it private.

Once children reach an appropriate age, parents should include them in the process of deciding what pictures are OK to post. Researchers at the University of Michigan surveyed 10- to 17-year-olds and found children believe their parents should ask permission more than parents think they should. The kids in the survey said sharing happy family moments, or accomplishments in sports, school and hobbies is fine. But when the post is negative (like when a child is disciplined) or embarrassing (think naked baby pictures or messy hair), kids say to keep it off social media.
Latest Obituaries