Can Job Stress Cause Heart Problems? Mine Hit 284 Beats a Minute

A personal story about job stress and heart problems, not medical advice. If you’re having symptoms (egs. chest pain, a racing heart, fainting) see a doctor today, not after the quarter closes.

I was sitting in a cardiologist’s office, twelve EKG leads stuck to my chest, arms, and legs, with no idea what was wrong with me. He looked at the printout. He looked at me. Then he said, “Okay, Mr. Freeman. We’ve got the results back from your first holter monitor, and I wouldn’t believe them if I didn’t have them in my hand. One of two things is happening here. Either this is something we manage and monitor for the rest of your life, or you’re going on a very long list for a new heart.”

A new heart. I was in my twenties.

The readout showed my heart had been climbing to as high as 284 beats per minute, more than triple a resting rate, in short, violent bursts. The trigger wasn’t exercise. It wasn’t caffeine, though I was drowning in it. It was the thing I’d built my entire life around: my job.

Can job stress actually cause heart problems?

Yes. Chronic job stress and long hours measurably damage your heart. The WHO and ILO’s joint study found that working 55 or more hours a week raises your risk of stroke by about 35% and your risk of dying from ischemic heart disease by about 17%, compared with a 35–40 hour week. In 2016 alone, long working hours were linked to roughly 745,000 cardiovascular deaths worldwide. 398,000 from stroke, 347,000 from heart disease.

I didn’t need the study. I had the monitor.

The escape that wasn’t

I’d left the company where I sat through 23 rounds of layoffs… out of the axe’s shadow and, it turned out, straight into the furnace. The new place was a startup, and the deal was simple and unspoken: put up revenue or be gone. We used to call twelve-hour days “half days” (half of a twenty-four-hour period). That was the joke, and like all the best jokes, it was true.

Here’s the part most people writing these articles leave out: I knew exactly what I’d signed up for, and a large part of me loved it. My wife and I were newly married, no kids yet, and this was our shot to build real wealth and set our lives up for good. I was traveling three weeks out of four, sitting in boardrooms, earning the respect of people I admired. On some level it felt like I’d made it in the corporate sense.

The days had a shape. The alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. I’d clear whatever had come in overnight, catch the 6:26 train, work through lunch, and grind through as many as a dozen meetings. Then home for a fast dinner, back onto the couch for follow-ups and prep for tomorrow, calls past 9:00, and asleep sitting up somewhere around 11:00. The money was fantastic. And I knew (everyone knew) that anyone who stopped bringing in revenue wouldn’t last a few months in our miniature Wolf of Wall Street. So nobody stopped.

The body keeps the ledger

A couple of years in, my body started sending invoices.

It began as what felt like palpitations… little flutters in my chest I wrote off as bad sleep and too much caffeine. Then it got worse. There were moments it felt like my heart simply stopped, followed by a hard, rapid pounding, and then a warm whooshing sensation that left me flushed and dizzy. At first it was occasional. Then it was happening several times in a single morning.

When you feel your heart stop and restart before you’ve finished your coffee, some animal part of your brain finally overrides the part that’s been rationalizing everything away. I saw a doctor. They fitted me with a holter monitor, a portable EKG you wear for a day or more, to catch whatever was happening in the act.

We caught it on the very first day.

The diagnosis, and the math

The condition had a name: nonsustained polymorphic ventricular tachycardia; bursts of dangerously fast, chaotic heartbeats originating in the lower chambers of the heart, the kind that in the wrong circumstances can stop it altogether.

I asked the cardiologist what the “new heart” scenario actually meant. He answered like he was telling me what he’d packed for lunch: “It’s the less likely option. But if it’s the worst version of this, there’s a good chance you won’t be here to see your thirtieth birthday. We’re going to run more tests: a cardiac MRI, an ultrasound of your heart, and go from there.”

I didn’t have a response. There isn’t one.

That’s the moment the math changed for me permanently. Because I’d been telling myself a story about the salary, that it was worth it, that we were building something. So I did the honest version of the arithmetic. You take the “crazy” money and you re-price it against what it actually bought: the 5:00 a.m. alarms, the calls past 9:00, the caffeine, the sleep I never got, and, apparently, some unknown number of years off the back end of my life.

Run that calculation and the trade looks insane. A paycheck that costs you your heart is the worst deal you will ever sign. (I broke down exactly how to run your real hourly wage in a separate piece; the number is uglier than you think.)

The pattern, not the employer

Here’s the part I most need you to hear.

Years later, at a completely different company, it came back. Same symptoms, except this time it ended with me fainting. My wife saw the whole thing. We spent a wild Friday night in the ER until 3:00 a.m., and I owe my in-laws forever for driving over in the dead of night to sit with our sleeping kids so they’d never have to see their dad like that.

Different badge. Same alarm.

That’s the whole point. Changing companies didn’t fix it, because the company was never the disease. The treadmill is the disease. The specific logo on the building changes; the 55-hour weeks and the always-on adrenaline don’t. And the only durable cure I’ve found isn’t a better boss or a wellness app; it’s leverage. It’s building enough walk-away money that you get to set the terms instead of your heart rate setting them for you.

I’m okay now, by the way, it’s monitored, it’s managed, and I still get checked regularly. I’m telling you that so you don’t finish this worried about me. Worry about you.

The Body Ledger

Here’s the idea I want you to steal: the Body Ledger.

Your body keeps a ledger, whether or not you ever open it. Every hour you work past 55 in a week gets recorded like debt, and it compounds. You don’t feel the interest accruing. You just get the bill one day, all at once, usually at the worst possible time. I got mine on a printout in a cardiologist’s office at an age when I should have been worrying about absolutely nothing.

So open the ledger before it opens you. Here’s your one thing to do today; it takes ten minutes:

Write down four numbers, and date them. Your resting heart rate (your phone or watch will tell you). Your blood pressure (the machine at any pharmacy works). Your average sleep over the past week. And your real hours worked this week… the honest number, including the couch and the 9:00 p.m. calls.

Four numbers. Dated. Saved. Then do it again next month.

You already track your net worth. This is the other balance sheet, the one that determines whether you’re around to spend the first one. And the escape fund? That’s not separate from your health, it’s how you eventually buy the ledger back, and figuring out your freedom number is where that starts.

If this is the first time anyone’s told you to take that seriously, let it be the last reminder you need. I’ll send the next steps straight to your inbox. Join the list below.

Frequently asked questions

---

This is my personal experience, not medical advice. I’m someone who lived it, not your doctor. Everyone’s heart and situation are different. If you’re experiencing any symptoms, please see a qualified medical professional right away.