Managing job stress and learning to make yourself indispensable at work can help reduce stress in the workplace and keep you healthier.

Don't sit there and worry; focus on fixing the things you can control.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—If losing your job is at the top of your worry list, you could be putting your health at risk, according to new research published in this month's journal Social Science and Medicine. "Dramatic changes in the U.S. labor market have weakened bonds between employers and employees, and fueled perceptions of job insecurity," says University of Michigan sociologist and study author Sarah Burgard, PhD, a research assistant professor at the Institute for Social Research. "The study provides the strongest evidence to date that persistent job insecurity has a negative impact on worker health. In fact, chronic job insecurity was a stronger predictor of poor health than either smoking or hypertension in one of the groups we studied."

THE DETAILS: In two studies, Burgard and colleagues looked at data on more than 1,700 adults; they interviewed the same people at different points in their lives, asking them about job security and health problems over a period of three to 10 years. The research took place between 1986 and 1989, and 1995 and 2005. At any given time, a number of the study participants—as much as 18 percent—felt insecure in their jobs. "Based on how participants rated their own physical and mental health, we found that people who were persistently concerned about losing their jobs reported significantly worse overall self-rated health, and in one of the studies, reported more depressive symptoms than those who had actually lost and regained their jobs recently," says Burgard.

WHAT IT MEANS: In a rough economy and an uncertain job market, it's not just the unemployed whose health is at risk. "Certainly job insecurity is nothing new, but the numbers experiencing persistent job insecurity could be considerably higher during this global recession," says Burgard. "So these findings could apply much more broadly today than they did even a few years ago."

And unlike a few decades ago, when job loss fears were pretty much limited to declining traditional industries like manufacturing, this recession is affecting a whole range of occupations and service industries. "Insecurity is touching highly educated workers and those with higher occupational status that in past decades," says Burgard.

If you're worried sick over losing your job, use these tips to help you stay on top.

• Take control. Feeling helpless may be the most difficult aspect of job insecurity. "If you have lost your job, you have to take action to find another one," Burgard explains. "But if you are chronically insecure and just waiting for the other shoe to drop, feeling powerless to change your situation, you will be under a lot of stress that could be damaging," Burgard explains.