Work and Leisure

138 Jiri Zuzanekbeneficial health effects for people under stress than for those who are notstressed (see also Iwasaki and Mannell 2000).In general, the survey evidence provides support for the proposition thatphysically active leisure contributes to better physical health, but lendslittle support to the stress-reducing capacity of leisure. The assessment ofthe impact of leisure participation on mental health requires additionalattention.The survey evidence, however, does lend solid support to the propositionthat positive psychological dispositions, such as mastery (perceived control ofone’s life), self-esteem and social support, have positive effects on both mentaland physical health and, in some instances, effectively ‘buffer’ the healthdamagingeffects of stress. The correlation between mastery and self-assessedhealth in the 1994 NPHS is 0.23, and between self-assessed health and selfesteem0.24. The association between mental health and dispositions of mastery,self-esteem and social support is even stronger. These relationshipsremain significant in multivariate analyses, when controlled for employmentstatus, age, gender and education.The positive impact of an improved organisational environment at workon physical and mental health has found only limited support in our analyses,but this may be due to the relative paucity of work-related information inmost surveys.The relationships between leisure participation, personality dispositions,social support, and health are complex. Direct and indirect influences oftenpoint in different directions. For example, longer hours of watching televisionare associated with lower ratings of self-assessed health (negative effect), aswell as lower levels of psychological stress (beneficial effect). The impact ofsporting activities on health and stress is, however, different. Higher levels ofsporting activity contribute to higher levels of both physical health and stress.The important question is, how much of the positive effect is offset by thenegative one, or to put it differently, what is the balance sheet of the conflictingeffects?A balanced lifestyle is in many regards the key to moderating the stress–health relationships. Unfortunately the concept of lifestyle balance is poorlyconceptualised in the research literature and the available methodologicaltools for its study are inadequate. In summary, the survey evidence about thenegative effects of time crunch and psychological stress on health is compelling.We appear to be at a loss, however, on how to effectively cope with thischallenge. Concerns with the ways to counter the negative effects of timepressure and stress on health require more research attention.ConclusionThe analyses reported in this chapter demonstrate that subjective feelings oftime pressure are primarily embedded in heavy loads of paid and unpaid