Working the Night Shift Can Lead to a Host of Physical and Psychological Problems

Back when I was working, I worked the night shift a lot, mostly in restaurants. I didn't work that many that were open 24-hours-a-day, but a lot of the time I would work until 2 or 3 in the morning. I wouldn't get to sleep until a couple of hours after I got home. I had to adjust my sleep times accordingly. I also have diabetes and get up a couple of times a night and check my blood sugar.

So my sleeping time has always been interrupted and unusual, not the normal eight or nine hours from 11 at night till 7 or 8 in the morning. Now it seems that I can''t sleep more than a few hours at a time and then I'm up for a while.

One time I worked at a 24-hour retail establishment and would get home after working all night and get to sleep just as the sun was coming up. I noticed that I was much more worn out and tired than when I was working late and getting to bed around 2 in the morning.

So, now that I'm on a "normal" routine, how do I get back to a more regular and timely sleeping pattern? That's a good question that no one seems to have an answer for.

According to CNN:

"Most sleep doctors agree that working at night, from a biologic point of view, is not natural for human beings. We have evolved to be active in the daytime and to sleep at night. In fact nearly every cell in our body has a circadian rhythm... Then came the invention of the light bulb, which has allowed us to separate our activities from the rhythm of the sun, but at our own peril."

There is actually a condition called "shift work disorder" where a person has a hard time sleeping in the daytime. We have a lot of good information on how many people do shift work, but not much information on how many of them have shift sleep disorder.

The people who have to sleep during the day are cranky, irritable, and tired most of the time. Shift work can also increase the chances of you getting cancer. Scientists believe this is because lack of sleep affects the melatonin levels in the brain by suppressing them.

Heart disease can also be aggravated by the lack of sleep. People who sleep during the day usually have higher blood pressures when they sleep. And it also affects the level of cortisol, a stress hormone. There is also an decrease in leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full, as well as a marked increase in insulin production. Just working a few days on the night shift can make you a pre-diabetic.

As if that wasn't enough, it can really mess with you psychologically. A whole host of psychological problems from mood disorder to alcoholism can be traced to an interrupted sleep cycle.

What about people who seem to have their circadian rhythms revered? If you are a night owl, are you somehow protected from all of the effects of not sleeping at night? Further research needs to be done on that question.

So, is it really worth that differential in shift pay to work the night shift? Probably not. And I didn't even get any extra pay for working it.

Source: http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/23/get-some-sleep-when-shift-work-disrupts-your-rest/