Have you ever noticed grown-ups who work all the time seem tired and forgetful? Scientists in South Korea have discovered why! According to DailyMail, working too many hours actually changes parts of your brain. The scientists found that when people work 52 hours or more each week (that’s more than 10 hours every day for 5 days), it can make it harder for them to remember things and solve problems.
These scientists from a place called Yonsei University in South Korea wanted to know what happens inside our heads when people work too much. They studied 110 workers – 32 of them worked way too many hours, and 78 worked normal hours. To see inside their brains, they used a special machine called an MRI scanner, which is like a giant camera that can take pictures of the inside of your head.
What did they find? The brains of people who worked too much actually looked different! One part of the brain called the “left caudal middle frontal gyrus” (that’s a super long name for a brain part) was 19% bigger in people who worked too much. That means it was almost one-fifth larger than in people who worked normal hours.
How Overwork Changes Your Brain
- Scientists found that overworking messed with important parts of the brain linked to how we think and feel. These changes in the brain’s structure showed up in people who worked too much, affecting areas that help with things like making decisions and managing feelings.
- The study discovered big changes in brain areas connected to thinking skills and how we handle our emotions. People who were overworked had noticeable differences in the parts of their brain that control things like staying focused and dealing with feelings.
- It turned out that working really long hours caused significant changes in the brain areas responsible for our thinking abilities and our emotional well-being. The researchers saw clear differences in the brains of overworked people in the spots that manage tasks like remembering and controlling emotions.
What Do These Brain Parts Do?
The brain parts that changed are super important for how you think and feel. According to the Korea Herald, the left caudal middle frontal gyrus helps you pay attention, remember things while you’re working on them, and make tricky decisions.
- The frontal lobe is like your brain’s boss – it helps you make good choices, solve problems, and plan things.
- The prefrontal cortex is the thinking center that helps you decide what’s important and what’s not.
- The middle frontal gyrus helps you keep track of information while you’re using it – like remembering the rules of a game while you play.
- The insula helps you understand your feelings and body signals like hunger or being tired.
- The superior frontal gyrus helps you pay attention to important things and ignore distractions.
News-Medical reports that the middle frontal gyrus is especially important for what scientists call “executive function” – that’s just a fancy way of saying it helps you think clearly, solve problems, and control your feelings.
How Many People Work Too Much?
| When | How Many People in South Korea Worked Too Much |
|---|---|
| 2020 | About 6 out of every 100 workers worked more than 52 hours each week |
| 2022 | About 12 out of every 100 workers (2.53 million people) worked more than 50 hours weekly |
| 2024 (June) | Over 25 out of every 100 people worked more than 52 hours weekly (this is against the rules!) |
| 2020 (Doctors in training) | Young doctors worked an average of 85.6 hours every week (that’s like working 12 hours every day with no days off!) |
It’s not just in South Korea where people work too much. A person named Ruth Wilkinson, who helps keep workers safe and healthy at something called the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, says that in the United Kingdom, almost one-fourth of workers (that’s 24 out of every 100) work more than 48 hours every week.
Ruth also found that 44 out of every 100 workers say that working extra hours is just normal at their jobs – it’s part of the workplace culture. That means lots of people think they have to work extra hours even if it might not be good for them.
Why This Matters for Everyone
The scientists who did this study published their findings in a special book for doctors called Occupational And Environmental Medicine. They wanted to show with real brain pictures that working too much isn’t good for people.
Even though you’re not working long hours like grown-ups, this is still important for you to know! It shows why taking breaks and rest is so important for our brains to work well. It’s like how you need to rest after running around or playing sports – your brain needs breaks too!
The researchers say companies and governments should make sure people don’t work too many hours. This would help everyone’s brains stay healthy and work better. So next time you see a grown-up working all the time, you can tell them that scientists found out our brains need rest to stay healthy!
