According to a new study, about 1 in 10 people who regularly work night shifts have a problem: more than half of them are likely to have developed some kind of sleep disorder, such as insomnia, Science Alert reported.
A team of researchers from the Netherlands and Belgium collected data on the work and sleep of 37,662 people, dividing them into groups depending on their day or night work schedule.
The studies examined six general categories of sleep disorders: insomnia, hypersomnia (excessive daytime sleepiness), parasomnia (abnormal movements or dreams), sleep-related breathing disorders, sleep-related movement disorders, and circadian rhythm sleep disorders. wakefulness.
"We showed that, compared to regular daytime shift work, other types of shift work were associated with more frequent occurrence of sleep disturbances, especially in rotational and regular night shift work," says sleep scientist Marieke Lancel from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
"Notably, 51 percent of night shift workers tested positive for at least one sleep disorder," Lancell said.
More than a quarter of regular night shift workers - 26% - reported two or more sleep disturbances. Across the entire study, across all work schedules combined, the number of people with at least one sleep disorder was about 1 in 3.
The team also broke down the results based on certain demographic factors. Sleep disorders, for example, are more common in women, although men tend to sleep fewer hours. Younger participants, under the age of 30, were more likely to have sleep disturbances, although older people were the ones who slept less time on average.
Education is also taken into consideration; it appears that young, less educated people are particularly vulnerable when it comes to disturbed sleep-wake patterns that are associated with sleep disorders.
"The effects of shift work on sleep are most pronounced in young people with less education," says Lancel.
All of this is based on self-reporting, not lab-based sleep analysis. The data is from people who responded to the newspaper's appeal and does not prove that night shift work is a direct cause of these health problems. However, statistics show a significant relationship between them.
Working irregular hours, especially at night, is already linked to a range of health problems, including diabetes, cancer, and depression. And working the night shift makes it difficult to maintain a good sleep pattern.
The researchers who authored this study acknowledge how much modern society relies on night work, but urge employers to be more mindful of the health impact - providing them with tools and advice to make the best of shift work.
"Work shift rotation, especially rapidly changing work schedules, with the period of night work as short as possible and with many days off in between, is usually recommended to recover the accumulated sleep deficit," the researchers wrote in their published paper. ./BGNES
