Having A 4-Day Work Week Could Literally Save The Planet, And Everyone’s Sanity

College prepares all of us for life after graduation in many different ways. I’m a pro at dragging my hungover ass to work, despite how much I want to die, because of this thing called recruitment that you have to show up for if you don’t want to get fined. After so many hungover mornings spent with a hundred other girls singing/chanting at the top of their lungs, there are few things I can’t handle the morning after a few too many.

One thing that school did not prepare me for, however, was the exquisite torture of being chained to a desk for eight hours a day. Every time I see a college student bitching on Twitter about having to go back to school after a long summer, I want to punch them in the face while simultaneously screaming at them to be grateful. College has its ups and downs, that much is true, but even at the worst of times it is infinitely better than the real world. That, I promise you.

Slaving away at work for 40 hours a week is miserable. Then there’s this idea that we’re supposed to work harder than that, putting in more hours and overtime, because the hardest workers get to the top, right? Wrong. As it turns out, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, working more than 60 hours a week triples the risk of getting cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. Oh, and we already know it flattens your ass. Cool. So working harder isn’t going to get you ahead, it’s just going to kill you. Good to know. We should all start working less so that we can literally save ourselves from having heart attacks in our office chairs.

To support that idea is Alex Williams, a lecturer in Sociology at City University London, who says that a four-day work week would not only save lives, but it would save the planet. Keeping commuters off the roads for an added day a week would reduce gas use and carbon emissions. Not having to power up the office air conditioning, lights, and computer power for a day a week could cut back massively on the energy output of an office. Hear that? Working less would literally save the damn planet as well as all our sanities. Remind me why we’re sticking to a five-day work week again?.

[via Daily Mail and Elite Daily]

Image via Shutterstock