Letter to Fast Company regarding the article Extreme Jobs (and the people who love them), April, 2005, pg. 54.

Reading "Extreme Jobs" was déjà vu. My former jobs—consultant and executive at high-profile tech companies—were similarly extreme. Extensive travel and being tethered 24x7—high-speed access at home, wireless and "crackberries" elsewhere—made life indistinguishable from work. This stress-wired, caffeine-fueled existence is like jumping from an airplane with your hair on fire. What a rush!

I must disagree, however, with a premise of your article: "if you like what you're doing, there's no physical risk." Though I loved my job, and thrived on the challenges and that addictive, stress-induced adrenaline rush, it still nearly killed me, literally.

Stress—even good stress—kills. Studies continue to implicate it in heart attacks and many other illnesses. Fifty-two per cent of executives will die from stress-related illnesses, and those 80–100 hour work weeks will set us up for heart attacks. Our high-wire acts often mean getting by on just 3–5 hours sleep without realizing that 5 hours or less, two nights per week, doubles or triples our risk of heart attack and increases diabetes risk, another heart disease risk factor.

While high locus of control is protective, who really has complete control? The more hours you work, especially on the road, the more other factors control you. We're boiling that frog slowly, and that frog is us.

Men have always had heart attacks at young ages, but now, more and more women do, too—in their forties, thirties, even twenties. Most women still think of breast cancer as the worst enemy, but two silent stalkers, heart disease and stroke, actually take ten times more of us than breast cancer—one woman every minute in the U.S.

In my high-tech, "always-on", road warrior lifestyle, stress hijacked my healthy habits and I almost died from heart disease. I didn’t have traditional risk factors—I was simply overweight and overstressed, like most of us today, many of whom may be headed for that same train wreck. But we can save ourselves, so I wrote A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life, a book that empowers women, and men, to take back control and save themselves.  

Some companies may need to change, too. Those that not only condone, but actually encourage, employees to overwork may not realize that when they burn up employees, they hurt themselves, too. Overworked, stressed-out employees are simply less productive and have 50% higher medical costs, driving up health care premiums and other costs. It's Lose-Lose, but it can be changed—companies need to encourage balance and healthy work styles, and gain productivity as an end result.

Letting an extreme job swallow up my life nearly cost my family and me the ultimate price, so every day we're grateful for the opportunity to share our story to help others avoid what we've been through. Life is too precious to work yourself to death in an extreme job—take back control of that job and take care of you. If you don't, who will?

Mellanie True Hills
Author of "A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life"
http://www.SaveHerLife.com and http://www.MellanieHills.com