“The first case of karōshi was reported in 1969 with the stroke-related death of a 29-year-old male worker in the shipping department of Japan‘s largest newspaper company.

The term was invented in 1978 to refer to an increasing number of people suffering from fatal strokes and heart attacks attributed to overwork. A book on the issue in 1982 brought the term into public usage, but it was not until the mid to late 1980s, during the Bubble Economy, however, when several high-ranking business executives who were still in their prime years suddenly died without any previous sign of illness, that the term emerged into Japanese public life.

This new phenomenon was immediately seen as a new and serious menace for people in the work force. In 1987, as public concern increased, the Japanese Ministry of Labour began to publish statistics on karōshi.”

Now, research has shown that super athletes have highly efficient Recover Rituals not used by their lesser competition although their competitors are equally fit.

It was seen that the Super Athletes recovered more quickly as did their heart rate because they had learned to do their rituals on a regular basis.

Once they had learned the basics, they could do the rituals quickly but their heart rate dropped faster than the competition in the same time period. This meant that their competition was less effective on the court because they had not had sufficient recovery time.

The people in the Karoshi studies were found to be suffering from the following –

  1. Extremely long hours that interfered with rest and recovery rituals
  2. Night work that interfered rest and recovery rituals
  3. Working without holidays or breaks
  4. High pressure work without breaks
  5. Extremely demanding and continual physical labour and increasingly stressful work.

The same people had also these things in common-

  1. No positive sources of renewal from primary relationships
  2. Precious little physical exercise
  3. No regular renewal of energy
  4. Over-training mentally and emotionally and under-training physically and spiritually.
  5. Fatigue prompted anxiety
  6. A loss of endurance and resilience
  7. A disconnect from deeply held values or a sense of purpose.

Many of us treat life as a Marathon rather than a series of sprints and it is now obvious that rest and renewal depends on our capacity to disengage.

To sustain HIGH PERFORMANCE, it is clear that rest, renewal and recovery is a high priority and to the degree that much activity is undertaken, the EXACT same time needs to be given to recovery rituals.

At least until you can recover quickly like the athletes?

Chris Borrett

Image Credit-FreeImages.com-Sebastian Danon

If by chance, you have not encountered my previous posts outside this blog, one of my favourites is about “A Woman’s Labour of Love.” You have the luxury of reading it by clicking here.