Smoking Addiction Common Among People Who Work More than 40 Hours a Week: Study

Long working hours can make employees smoke more cigarettes, finds a study.

Cigarette smoking and tobacco use are preventable causes of death and respiratory diseases in the U.S. killing more than 480,000 Americans annually, says a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Smoking is mostly influenced by an individual's lifestyle, peer pressure, stress and daily life problems. Experts at the Loughborough University found people's weekly work duration impacts employees' decision to smoke cigarettes. They add smokers who work overtime are less likely to kick the butt.

Their study used records of British Household Panel Survey to observe smoking behaviors and weekly working hours of 20,000 participants for almost 19 years. The subject's cigarette consumption increased as they stretched from 40 to 60 hours in a week at work. Cigarette smoking in-between a stressful and busy working day helped employees relax and loosen up thus, making them more addicted to the habit.

"When smokers increase their hours above a typical 40 hour working week, the chances they will successfully give up smoking fall, and they become progressively less likely to give up as their working hours increase," said Andy Charlwood, study author and professor at the School of Business and Economics in Loughborough University, reports the News Reports. Com.

People who were heavy smokers in the past have higher odds of returning to the habit when they dedicate more time to their professional life and career.

"Even if people like their jobs and choose to work long hours, we tend to experience more stress and less pleasure at work than we do when undertaking most other day-to-day activities," says Charlwood, reports Yahoo News.

The CDC's statistical data reveals during 2012, 18.1 percent of U.S. adults were current cigarette smokers. Nearly 78.4 percent of these people smoked daily while, 21.6 percent of adults were occasional smokers.

More information is available online in the journal Social Science and Medicine.