Is shift work ruining your sleep pattern?

A new study has shown that shift work can have detrimental impacts on our sleep, health, and wellbeing.

Is shift work disorder a real thing? According to a Harvard study, mounting evidence paints a worrisome picture of the potential health and wellbeing consequences of non-traditional shift work schedules that affect 15 to 30 per cent of workers in the US and Europe.

This group is made up of a number of different industries, including factory and warehouse workers, police officers, nurses, and other emergency services.

Eric Zhou, assistant professor in the division of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, explained that the so-called shift work disorder mainly strikes people who work the overnight or early morning shift, or who rotate their shifts.

“People who work nine-to-five shifts are typically awake when the sun is up, which is aligned with their body’s internal circadian clock. But for shift workers, their work hours and sleep hours are misaligned with the natural cues to be awake or asleep. They’re working against the universe’s natural inclinations – not just their body’s,” Zhou said.

Shift work disorder is characterised by significant sleep problems, whether sleeping in too long or struggling to get to sleep in the first place. This occurs because shift work directly disrupts the body’s normal alignment with the 24-hour sleep-wake cycle.

When workers constantly change their shifts, especially between day and night, it can mess up their sleep patterns.

A 2022 research review in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine also links shift work to higher risks for serious health problems, such as heart attacks and diabetes, as well as other long-term health ramifications.

Some of those health issues can be metabolic syndrome, heart disease, and certain types of cancer. As Zhou stated: “The research is consistent and powerful. Working and sleeping during hours misaligned with natural light for extended periods of time is not likely to be healthy for you.”

“Cancer understandably scares people, and the World Health Organisation recognises that shift work is a probable carcinogen. The combination of chronically insufficient and poor-quality sleep is likely to get under the skin. That said, we don’t fully understand how this happens,” Zhou said.

Zhou provided a number of evidence-based strategies that shift workers can use to lessen the chance of these health problems arising.

• Time your exposure to bright and dim light: Graveyard shift workers whose work schedule runs from midnight through 8am, for example, should reduce their light exposure as much as possible after leaving work if they intend to go right to sleep once they return home. “These measures could take the form of wearing blue-light-blocking glasses or using blackout shades in your bedroom,” Zhou said.
• Make enough time for sleep on days off: “This is often harder than it sounds because you’ll want to see your family and friends during non-work hours. You need to truly protect your opportunity for sleep.”
• Maintain a consistent shift work schedule: “Also, try to minimise the consecutive number of days you spend working challenging shifts.”
• Talk to your employer to schedule you for fewer overnight shifts: “You can also ask your doctor to make a case for you to be moved off these shifts or have more flexibility,” stated Zhou.
• Look for practical solutions that allow you to get more restful sleep: “People engaged in shift work usually have responsibilities to their job as well as their family members, who often operate under a more typical nine-to-five schedule. The goal is to preserve as strong a circadian rhythm as possible under the abnormal schedule shift work requires,” Zhou concluded.