Woman works herself to death after she works 159 hours of overtime in a month with 2 days off.

A young journalist’s gruelling work schedule — including a single month with 159 hours of overtime and just two days off — triggered the heart failure that killed her at age 31, Japanese labour regulators ruled.She was under circumstances that she could not secure enough days off due to responsibilities that required her to stay up very late,” said a release from labour regulators, according to the Shimbun. “It can be inferred that she was in a state of accumulated fatigue and chronic sleep deprivation.”

Authorities officially attributed Miwa Sado’s death to “karoshi” — the Japanese word for a death due to overwork — according to information released this week by NHK, the public broadcaster that employed her.

Sado, a political reporter, had been covering elections for Tokyo’s government and the national parliament in the months leading up to her death in 2013. She died three days after the elections for Japan’s upper house.

NHK had not released information that regulators had compiled about the death until this week.