Occupations were divided into 6 categories based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations-88 by the International Labour Office. Analyses of variance were carried out separately for industries and occupations. Multiple comparisons with Bonferroni method indicated that in the manufacturing industry and professionals, the "66 h or more" group had a higher level of fatigue than the "less than 60 h" group (P<0.05). In the human health and social work activities industry, the "61-65 h" and "66 h or more" groups had a higher level of fatigue than the "less than 60 h" group (P<0.05). No significant association was found between working hours and depressive symptoms in any industry or occupation. Although reducing the number of working hours is essential to ameliorate workers' fatigue, special attention should be paid to workers in manufacturing or human health and social work activities industries and professionals who work long hours. Especially, workers employed in the human health and social work activities industry who worked at least 61 hours per week, showed higher scores of fatigue. This suggests that the association between working hours and fatigue is varied among different industrial sectors. Psychosocial work conditions including high demands, lack of control and support have been linked to poor health. Yet, the influence of individual factors such as general mental ability (GMA) remains to be examined. The present study set out to investigate how childhood mental ability and psychosocial work characteristics relate to different health indicators in a cohort of working women(n=271) and men (n=291). Specifically, childhood GMA and self-reports of job demands, job control and social support were linked to two positive health indicators (sense of coherence and self-rated health) and two negative health indicators (musculoskeletal problems and anxiety in midlife). Considering the gendered labor market and variations in health patterns between women and men, gender specific analyses were performed. Results revealed no linkages between childhood GMA and the health indicators included. Further, there were no significant interactions between GMA and the psychosocial factors. The overall impact of occupational level was low and controlling for occupational level did not change the results much. These findings are likely to result from the study cohort being fairly homogeneous and the women and men being in good health. Objectives: Few studies have been devoted to exploring hospital physicians' work stresses to their quality of work lives. This study was aimed to explore the relationship between work stress and the quality of work lives, especially under the circumstances of given work stress, the moderating effects of labor activities on the work stress and quality of work lives. Methods: Developed, structured and validated questionnaire was released by mails to hospital physician executives in the period of Aug-Nov 2009 and 737 respondents returned in this study with a response rate of 32.83%. Measures included work stressors as financial-oriented and norm-oriented, and work lives as work and career satisfaction, health status and illness, and substance uses. Labor activities were measured as body labors and leisure activities. Personal characteristics and work status of hospital physician executives were also collected. Descriptive analyses, factor analyses, and multiple regressions were performed. Results: Controlling the personal characteristics and work status of hospital physician executives, it was found that perceived financial-oriented and norm-oriented stresses by hospital physician executives had lower work satisfaction and career satisfaction, more illness symptoms, and worse perceived health status; however, more labor activities had positive effects on quality of work lives. Especially, body labors could moderate financialoriented stress to better career and work satisfaction, better perceived health status, less muscular illness, and reduced sleeping disorders. Also, leisure activities moderated norm-oriented stress to reduced nose and throat illness and moderated financialoriented stress to higher alcohol assumptions. Conclusions and implications: We verified the negative relationships of work stress to quality of work lives for hospital physician executives. Moreover, labor activities played important roles in moderating the work stress to work lives. Under the given work stresses in the health care work environments, hospital administrators could recognize the values of body labors and leisure activities into health promotion programs for their health care professionals to create healthy work environments. Cardiovascular reactivity has been intensively studied for some decades as a potential risk factor or risk marker of cardiovascular disorders and diseases. Among other end-points hypertension, coronary heart disease, and stroke have been possible to predict in research using reactivity measures. However, these predictions have not always been successful. Progress needs to be made. One of the possibilities is using cardiovascular recovery in addition to reactivity in the prediction of pathological processes of hemodynamics and neuroendocrinology as well as direct disorders and diseases. New steps towards applying the research results in clinical practice are necessary to realize the promises of cardiovascular behavioral research. This symposium is one step in this direction. In this symposium researchers will present papers regarding different aspects of cardiovascular regulation, reactivity, and recovery. The symposium starts with Dr Gellman who has comprehensively studied the relationship among hostility, metabolic syndrome, and cardiac structure & function. Dr. Gellman's research is relevant for many of the most common life style factors. The second paper will be Dr. Hamer's presentation regarding psychophysiological responses and their relationship with sub-clinical coronary heart disease. This topic will help particularly in the planning of coronary heart disease prevention. Third, Dr. Tuomisto will illuminate different patterns of cardiovascular reactivity and recovery in intra-arterial blood pressure of normotensive and hypertensive individuals. The results may promote research in the prediction of cardiovascular risks. The last presentation will be Dr. Zanstra's study of challenge appraisals' role in the prediction of a myocardial reaction pattern in anticipation of and reactivity to a naturalistic stressor. The study has interest especially for those who do research in real world circumstances. All these presentations will have both indirect and direct relevance for clinical research in the prediction and prevention of cardiovascular diseases in addition to more basic theoretical issues. Acute psychophysiological stress testing, involving measurement of cardiovascular and biological responses to laboratory-induced mental stress, is an important tool to investigate mechanisms that might account for the association between psychosocial stress and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The present study was designed to examine associations of disturbed psychophysiological responses with sub-clinical atherosclerosis. Participants were 543 healthy men and women (mean age=62.9±5.7 yrs), without history or objective signs of CVD, drawn from the Whitehall II epidemiological cohort. Various cardiovascular (beat-to-beat blood pressure, heart rate variability) and biological measures (inflammatory and haemostatic markers, salivary cortisol) were assessed during and following mental stressors, consisting of a 5-min Stroop task and a 5-min mirror tracing task. Coronary artery calcium (CAC), a measure of subclinical coronary atherosclerosis, was measured using electron beam computed tomography. The tasks induced significant increases in blood pressure, cortisol, interleukin-6, and fibrinogen. Cortisol responders were at higher risk of having clinically relevant levels of CAC (odds ratio=2.17, 95% CI, 1.37 -3.41) after adjustments for age, gender, baseline cortisol, social status, depressive symptoms, and conventional risk factors. Cardiovascular responses were not associated with CAC. Basal levels of inflammatory markers were associated with CAC although the stress responses were not. These data support the notion that cortisol stress reactivity, an index of hypothalamic pituitary adrenal function, is one of the possible mechanisms through which psychosocial stress may influence the risk of CHD. Cardiovascular reactivity to behavioral stress tasks has been shown to be associated with pathological hemodynamic and neuroendocrinological processes. Later, recovery from such stress has been studied for similar reasons. Our purpose was to study cardiovascular reactivity from a baseline condition, a relaxation to behavioral stress tasks and recovery from the tasks to a relaxation condition after the tasks. As data, we used the Tampere Ambulatory Hypertension Study data bank of intraarterial blood pressure (BP) from the 1990's. The participants were 95 newly detected, WHO-classified, age-matched normotensive (NT; n=33), borderline hypertensive (BHT; n=30) and hypertensive (HT; n=32) men recruited through routine health examinations. They underwent a 5-minute cue-controlled relaxation (R1) followed by 8 standardized behavioral challenges: a video game, arithmetic, social problem solving, imagery, a habituation test, a comic film, and the cold pressor test. After the tasks, a 10-minute relaxation period (R2) was started. Systolic and diastolic BP (SBP, DBP) and heart rate (HR) and were analyzed. First, in a mixed-design ANOVA, Time factor, R1 (the reactivity baseline) and R2 (the recovery baseline) was studied together with the groups. The Time x Group interactions did not differ for SBP, DBP and HR: Fs(2, 92) < 1.04. However, the direction of recovery was different for BPs and HR. During the recovery baseline, HR was lower than during the reactivity baseline. The reverse was true for both SBP and DBP. Second, R2 variables were compared in ANCOVA using R1 variables as covariates. Following main effects were obtained: SBP, F(2, 91) = 3.14, p<.05 and DBP, F(2, 91) = 5.98, p<.005. In Bonferroni controlled group contrasts, the recovery baseline measures showed differences between the hypertensive groups in DBP (p<.05, 95% confidence interval=0.8 -6.59) while reactivity measures had shown DBP differences between these groups only in the cold pressor test. In conclusion, intra-arterial BP and S202