Is your job stressful? It might just kill you.

Last year, CTV News reported that people who are under pressure at work have a 22% greater risk of having a stroke than those who work in less stressful jobs. This was based on the work of  researchers at the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, who examined data from six studies (involving 138,782 patients followed between three and 17 years).

The researchers classified jobs into categories and found that those with high-stress jobs (which included nurses and waiters) were more likely to have a stroke. Researchers also noted that the risk was 33% higher for women than men.

One possible explanation, researchers said, is poor lifestyle.

“It’s possible that high-stress jobs lead to more unhealthy behaviours, such as poor eating habits, smoking and a lack of exercise,” said Dingli Xu. So, if your job is stressful, you have even more incentive to take good care of yourself. Or you could look for something that pays well but relieves some of the pressure. Business Insider recently put together a list of such jobs. The list was created by career information expert Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., who compared average salaries and stress levels of the 767 occupations identified by the US Department of Labor to identify jobs high pay and low stress.

Business Insider explains:

“The ‘stress tolerance’ for each job is a rating on a scale from zero to 100, where a lower rating signals less stress. It measures how frequently workers must accept criticism and deal effectively with high stress on the job. The data was gathered from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and US Occupational Information Network.”

Of that list of 24 jobs, here are 13 that pay more than $100,000 a year, on average, with a stress tolerance rating of 70 or lower.

OK, yes, you do need to get a lot of specialized education for most of these. But you can’t expect something for nothing.

Here are high-paying, low-stress jobs (ranked by salary):

Economics teachers (post secondary)
Stress tolerance: 61.8
Average annual salary (2014): $102,120

Political scientist
Stress tolerance: 60.8
Average annual salary (2014): $104,000

Mathematician
Stress tolerance: 57.2
Average annual salary (2014): $104,350

Economist
Stress tolerance: 58.7
Average annual salary (2014): $105,290

Astronomer
Stress tolerance: 62.0
Average annual salary (2014): $107,140

Geoscientist (except hydrologists and geographers)
Stress tolerance: 62.5
Average annual salary (2014): $105,390

Actuary
Stress tolerance: 63.7
Average annual salary (2014): $110,090

Computer hardware engineers
Stress tolerance: 67.0
Average annual salary (2014): $110,650

Optometrist
Stress tolerance: 70.3
Average annual salary (2014): $113,010

Physicists
Stress tolerance: 61.3
Average annual salary (2014): $117,300

Law teachers (post secondary)
Stress tolerance: 62.7
Average annual salary (2014): $126,270

Computer and information systems managers
Stress tolerance: 64.2
Average annual salary (2014): $136,280

Orthodontist
Stress tolerance: 67.0
Average annual salary (2014): $201,030

 

See also:

The average Canadian salaries by industry and region
6 things you should never say when negotiating a salary
10 jobs that can pay over $60,000 (and $100,000) without a degree
10 IT jobs that pay more than $50,000

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