Leisure-time physical activity, occupational physical activity and the physical activity paradox in healthcare workers: A systematic overview of the literature

Mood profile in men and women of all ages is improved by leisure-time physical activity rather than work-related physical activity

“…Sitting at work depended on the type of job and age. According to the latest systematic literature review, leisure-time PA is negatively related to work-related PA [20]. However, we did not observe a negative correlation between MVPAlt and MVPAw or MVPAh.…”

“…Researchers have recently found a PA paradox, which revealed that leisure-time PA is more bene cial for health than work-related PA [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]. This PA paradox has been observed in regard to all-cause mortality [14,15,21], cardiovascular disease mortality [19], long-term sickness work absence [22], longevity [23], and systolic blood pressure [18].…”

Occupational and leisure-time physical activity and associated factors among shift-working registered nurses: A cross-sectional study

“…Conversely, high occupational physical activity predicted a higher likelihood of sick days. Consistent with these findings, a recent systematic review suggested that occupational physical activity may be related to worse cardiovascular parameters in female healthcare workers, while leisure-time physical activity was beneficial; however, only a small number of studies ( N = 5) examined this relationship ( Janssen and Voelcker-Rehage, 2023 ). These emerging observations point to the importance of studying leisure and occupational physical activity separately.…”

“…Additionally, most studies combine leisure and work-related physical activity or assess only one dimension. Though the body of evidence is limited, a recent systematic overview of the literature found that, while leisure time physical activity was associated with cardiovascular benefits in healthcare workers, occupational physical activity was not, suggesting they should be studied separately in this population ( Janssen and Voelcker-Rehage, 2023 ). Finally, existing studies in nurses did not consider shift schedules.…”

Urban-rural differences in the association between occupational physical activity and mortality in Chinese working population: evidence from a nationwide cohort study

“…The latter, at a high level of intensity, seemed to be harmful in some cases. 4 , 5 , 6 This potential discrepancy has been denoted as the “physical activity paradox”. Several possible mechanisms, such as higher cardiovascular burden, have been proposed to explain this paradox, although none have been rigorously tested.…”