Rotating Night Shift Work and Type 2 Diabetes in Women

A new study found that the longer women worked rotating night shifts, the greater their risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Researchers also found that extended years of rotating night shift work was associated with weight gain. The weight gain may have contributed to the increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Women who worked rotating night shifts for three to nine years faced a 20 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Women who worked nights for 10 to 19 years had a 40 percent rise in risk. And women who worked night shifts for over 20 years were 58 percent more at risk. Women who worked rotating night shifts also gained more weight and were more likely to become obese during the follow-up.

Rotating night shift work was defined as three or more night shifts plus day and evening hours each month. The Harvard School of Public Health tracked more than 175,000 U.S. nurses for this study. Findings were published Dec. 6 in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Researchers said the findings need to be confirmed in men and ethnic groups (96 percent of the nurses were white Caucasians). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 15 million Americans work full time on evening shifts, night shifts, rotating shifts or other irregular schedules.

Read more about shift work sleep disorder and women’s sleep needs. More stories about sleep and type 2 diabetes are available on the Sleep Education Blog.

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Second Air Traffic Controller Sleeps through Midnight Shift

For the second time in two months, an air traffic controller was caught sleeping on the job. A Federal Aviation Administration report says the unnamed controller didn’t accidently doze off - he intentionally slept for five hours.

The incident happened at McGee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, Tenn. on February 19 – more than a month before a supervisor working alone at Washington’s Reagan National Airport unintentionally fell asleep for nearly a half-hour.

Unlike the incident a month ago, the Knoxville controller is being fired by the government for “unprofessional and inappropriate behavior.”

It’s easy to blame an irresponsible employee, but as the Sleep Education Blog reported recently, the problem runs much deeper.

Air traffic controllers face notoriously difficult sleep schedules. One common schedule for air traffic controllers known as the “rattler” involves returning to work a midnight shift only hours after working a daytime shift. The nickname “rattler” comes from the damage the shift does to sleep patterns.

The problem of fatigued air traffic controllers are hardly a new one. In 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board released a report that shed light on how sleep deprivation affects job performance. The report revealed that air traffic controllers get an average of only 2.3 hours of sleep before a midnight shift. Rapidly rotating shifts and short rest periods between shifts lead workers to be fatigued before a shift even begins.

To make things worse, most midnight-shift air traffic controllers work alone. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association emphasizes staffing problems as the cause for both cases, and is demanding there be extra controllers during overnight shifts as safety measure.

The FAA is hesitant to hire, because air traffic controllers generally earn high pay and have pricey benefits. The U.S. Labor Department Bureau of Statistics reports that the average salary of air traffic controllers was $109,218 in March 2009. Transportation officials may have a difficult time justifying that kind of cost in the current political and budgetary climate on Capitol Hill.

It’s possible that air traffic controllers will see some type of regulation that affects their schedules as a reaction to both incidents. In the meantime, the AASM has provided air traffic controllers and shift workers with a list of tips that can help with the midnight shift.

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Planes Land in D.C. Airport While Traffic Controller Sleeps

Numerous attempts to contact air traffic control went unanswered during the final approach to Washington D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport early Wednesday. Two planes had to rely on directions from a regional facility located about 40 miles away, while the nearby control tower remained mysteriously silent.

Only one person was scheduled for duty at the time and that air traffic controller was asleep, sources tell the Associated Press.

Authorities insist the risk Wednesday was minimal because pilots are trained to announce an emergency landing over a special broadcast channel in the event that no air traffic controllers are present. The pilots would not be able to see if there was equipment on the runway that could be a landing hazard.



Air traffic controllers like many professionals in the airline industry face grueling and irregular work schedules that puts them at risk. Shift work disorder is especially prevalent. People with shift work disorder may fight their own circadian rhythms on a daily basis. The body may signal its time to sleep mid-shift and by the time shift workers get home circadian rhythms can make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.

The airline industry has had its share of problems possibly related to shift work disorder and other sleep problems. An NTSB investigation named impairment from fatigue and pilot inexperience as causes of the deadly crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 in February 2009. One pilot napped in the airport while the other took a cross-country red-eye prior to the flight.

Recent investigations found similar working conditions to be common in the industry. Pilots are required a rest period of only eight hours between shifts. The rest period can occur at any time, day or night, without considering whether the pilot has the ability to fall asleep.

Low wages among pilots who work for smaller carriers also pose a safety problem. Pilots may try to save money by sleeping at hostel-like “crash-pads” instead of hotels. With up to a dozen airline employees sleeping in bunks in the same room, “crash-pads” aren’t a good place to sleep.

Last fall, the Federal Aviation Authority proposed scheduling regulations intended to address pilot fatigue. Those changes were met with strong opposition.

It appears that regulators have turned their attention to air traffic controllers. Reagan airport has agreed to increase its overnight staffing, after a direct request from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

It will remain to be seen if the sleeping air traffic controller will lead to major industry changes.

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Shift Work May Cause Swell in Sleep Apnea Symptoms

A new study provides further health concerns for the estimated 20 million Americans who sleep during the daytime because of their work schedule. The symptoms of untreated obstructive sleep apnea may be worse for shift workers, a new study reports.

The study compared a group of 31 shift workers to ten daytime workers. Members in both groups were previously diagnosed with sleep apnea and had similar ages, weights and sleep lengths.

Daytime and nighttime polysomnograph results show that the shift workers had more frequent breathing pauses in breathing and higher oxygen desaturation levels. Both measures show that shift workers had more severe symptoms of sleep apnea.

The authors of the study caution that patients with untreated sleep apnea should avoid nighttime work. The Sleep Education Blog urges workers with sleep apnea to take that warning one step further and never let sleep apnea go untreated. Sleep apnea has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, dementia and other serious health problems.

Shift work also can also harm your health. Some workers may struggle with shift work disorder, which causes your internal body clock to go awry. Workers with shift work disorder may be severely tired but unable to sleep. Loss of sleep length and quality may affect job performance and put workers at risk for injury.

Read more about obstructive sleep apnea and shift work disorder.

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Workplace Disability & The Value of Sleep

The business cost of insomnia goes beyond loss of employee productivity. Workers with regular sleep disturbances go on disability more often and take longer to return to work.

A study published in the October, 2010 issue of the journal SLEEP investigated how insomnia impacts workplace health. Researchers found sleep disturbances predicted later workplace disability for mental disorders, physical illnesses and musculoskeletal disorders.

The study followed more than 56,000 active public employees in Finland for more than three years. Each of the government and public hospital employees was surveyed about sleep disturbances and preexisting health conditions at the start of the study. The authors used national records to identify which employees went on disability during the follow-up after three years.

Workers who had existing medical conditions, used prescribed pain killers or regularly performed manual labor were most likely to report severe sleep disturbance which occurred more 5-7 days per week.

Over the course of the study, 7 percent of the employees went on disability. About 1 in 3 never returned to work. Statistical analysis shows people who reported sleep disturbances had a higher likelihood of going on work disability and not returning to work. The results were adjusted for complicating factors such as shift work, depression and preexisting health problems.

Worker disability is only one of the business costs of sleep disturbances. Insomnia can also make you worse at your job.

Sometimes your job may be the source of the sleep problems. In 2009 the Sleep Education Blog reported on studies that tied high stress work and low social support at the workplace to long-term insomnia.

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NTSB: Tired Trucker Caused Crash that Killed 10

The National Transportation Safety Board promises to turn up the pressure on the trucking industry, following a year-long investigation that ruled driver fatigue as the cause of a devastating semi crash on an Oklahoma highway. 10 people died, and five more were injured when Donald L. Creed, then 76, rammed through a line of cars stopped in traffic 90 miles northeast of Tulsa. Creed was apparently unaware and never tried to brake or swerve to avoid the stopped cars.

Investigators believe Creed only slept five hours before starting his shift at 3 a.m. He had been driving for 10 hours when he caused the accident. The Associated Press reports Creed had recently returned from vacation and was still readjusting to shift work.

Creed also had mild sleep apnea, and it’s not clear if he was receiving treatment.
The NTSB recommends federal regulators take action in response to the accident report. Measures would include require fatigue risk management program that would make sure drivers sleep before beginning their shift. The program would include sleep apnea screenings for drivers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is working on a similar model program that is expected to finish development in about two years. It would not be required under current regulations.

Other measures include requiring “black box” recorders for accident investigations and collision warning systems. The systems, currently available for $1,000 to $2,000, give visual and audio alerts when their truck is within 350 feet of colliding with another vehicle. The NTSB recommended the use of collision warning systems in 2001, but the devices were never required.

NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman said in the Tuesday hearing, "The time to act on all three of these safety fundamentals is now so that this kind of horrific tragedy will not occur again."

Accident investigators claim the systems could save an estimated 96 lives each year by preventing as many as 4,700 accidents.

The U. S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that drowsy driving is related to more than 1,500 deaths per year.

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Circadian Signs Found in Hair Samples

You can find out a lot about a person’s health just by taking a hair sample. Employers and police use hair tests to detect traces of alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, meth and many more oft-abused substances. Your doctor can tell you if you have any vitamin, mineral or nutritional deficiencies from a few dozen strands. And now researchers are learning hair tests can show when we are supposed to sleep and whether our body clocks are off track.

Findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest hair sample testing may help specialists in sleep medicine diagnose circadian rhythm disorders. Hair follicle cells from the head or chin hair contain clock gene expressions. In other words, the amount of the genetic material RNA in your hair shows whether you’re supposed to be alert. Your hair has the most RNA during peak hours.

The Japanese authors repeatedly took hair samples from volunteers as they continued their daily routines. Over the course of three weeks they adjusted their schedule by four hours. Hair samples show their peak activity was still about two hours off, meaning their body clocks weren’t adjusted to the new sleep schedule.

The effect was magnified for rotating shift workers. Their body clock differed from their sleep-wake schedule by an average of five hours.

Beard hair worked best for the tests: researchers needed only three strands to detect circadian rhythms. It took about five head hairs for people with thick hair and up to 20 for thin head hair.

The technique is still in its infancy but has potential for clinical use, the authors argue. Hair samples could potentially tell us our chronotype and diagnose circadian rhythm disorder, jet lag and shift work disorder.

Read more about chronotypes and shift work on the Sleep Education Blog.

Image by Sciencehealth

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Study: Shorter Medical Resident Shifts Improve Quality of Care

A comprehensive literature review demonstrates why working medical residents past the point of exhaustion is a policy that’s quickly falling out of favor. Residents make fewer mistakes and lead a better quality of life when their shift lasts less than 16 hours, the study reports.

Regular hospital shifts lasting 24 hours or longer are traditionally a rite of passage for future medical practitioners. In recent years a countermovement calling for limits on resident work hours has gained momentum. Last year the Institution of Medicine recommended a maximum of 16 consecutive hours without sleep. The move has been greeted with controversy in the medical community because of high costs and uncertain benefits.

The authors of the study published in the August issue of the journal SLEEP set out to demonstrate the benefits of imposing a cap on resident work hours. Using an online literature search, the authors identified 23 peer-reviewed studies involving the outcomes of reducing shift lengths for medical residents in the United States.

Every study found that reducing or eliminating extended shifts improved residents’ quality of life. Quality of patient care improved in most of the studies after shift lengths were slashed. It’s unclear whether there were benefits to resident education; the findings were generally unchanged after a reduction in shift length.

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Sleep Usually Sacrificed in Early Morning Work Schedules

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, so starting work at the crack of dawn shouldn’t be that difficult, right? In theory it’s not, but modern lifestyles make the old saying unrealistic. The early risers rarely go to sleep early enough, according to a new survey published in the journal Chronobiology International.

More than 1 in 10 people occasionally wake up before sunrise to go to work. About 2 percent of people do it all the time. But bedtimes rarely change.

Total sleep time ends up falling because of the schedule. People who report to work between 3:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. usually slept for less than five hours per night.

Study subjects signaled such sleep loss leads to dissatisfaction with work, fatigue
and feelings of not being well rested. Some workers reported trouble sleeping while on early work schedules.

The findings should raise some eyebrows for managers responsible for scheduling employees. Productivity is bound to drop when employees are tired and unhappy.

Sleep disorder or not it’s hard to blame early morning workers for staying up past 9 p.m., after all they have the same modern obligations and distractions as everyone else.

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Switch to Shift Work Leads to Sleep Struggles

Try going to sleep when the sun is rising and staying asleep through the brightest hours of the day. The odd sleep schedules that come with shift work is never easy. It goes against everything we learned at an early age. Turning your sleep schedule topsy-turvy is a shock to the system that can lead to insomnia and chronic fatigue.

Switching from shift work to regular daytime hours has the opposite effect, a new study reports. Swedish researchers examined the transition hardships associated with shift work in an article published in the July issue of Chronobiology International.

The study involved more than 3,600 participants who answered questionnaires about work hours, sleep and work environment at the start and end of a five year period.

Results show the participants had the most sleeping problems upon entering shift work. Many reported falling asleep on the job and having difficulty getting to sleep after work.

The risk of work fatigue and insomnia significantly diminished after the subjects returned to daylight work hours.

The findings were adjusted for various factors including work demands, physical workload and familial status.

Some shift work schedules are more difficult than others a previous study suggests. Jobs with start times between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m. tend to limit sleep and harm performance at work.

Caffeine may help offset fatigue and limit mistakes at work. Make sure to limit consumption to the first couple hours of work so you don’t have problems getting to sleep later.

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The Perks and Perils of Split Sleep Schedules for Shift Workers

One of the most difficult aspects of shift work is figuring out when to sleep. You may get right to sleep after work but wake up earlier than intended, alert and unable to return to sleep. It may feel fine in the afternoon, but by the time the next shift starts exhaustion sets in.

Some shift workers adapt by splitting their sleep into two shorter periods each day. It works like this: sleep 4 to 5 hours in the morning, wake up in the early afternoon, and then take a long nap 2 to 3 hours before work.

Those with split sleep schedules say it allows for more flexibility to participate in daytime and early evening activities including parenting, socializing and running errands.

A limited body of research topic suggests a split sleep schedule is no different than sleeping exclusively during the daytime. Alertness levels are about the same in both conditions. It’s up to shift workers to decide what strategy is the best fit to get the maximum amount of sleep.

A 1998 study used computer modeling to test different sleep approaches for shift workers, including split sleep schedules. Results show a long late nap may increase alertness and minimize risk of injury or mistakes when the nap is taken around 1 a.m. The unfortunate reality is most overnight shift workers don’t have that luxury.

The authors determined the next best time for a nap is leading up to the start of work. This may help but it’s likely you will find yourself struggling to stay awake for most of your shift, especially between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

The study included a model for sleeping exclusively during the daytime. The results were nearly identical; sleeping a full 7.5 consecutive hours in the daytime leads to the same overnight alertness levels, however reduced, as napping before work.

A NASA funded experiment by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School came up with the same conclusion. The study looked at whether astronauts and mission control personnel could perform sufficiently under nontraditional sleep schedules, including split sleep.

Researchers monitored 90 subjects in a controlled laboratory with no external time cues for 14 consecutive days. Participants were assigned to one of 18 strict sleep conditions that included a mix of split sleep schedules and full daytime sleep schedules. The control group slept at night for about eight hours. The participants were given a series of alertness tests every two hours they were awake.

There was no measurable difference between split sleep schedules and daytime sleep, as long as the total sleep length was sufficient. The authors concluded split schedules have no negative impact and may allow more lifestyle flexibility for civilian shift workers.

Both approaches have their downsides. Staying asleep through the afternoon may be a challenge, especially during the summertime. Taking a late nap may make it difficult to fall asleep after work. Insomnia is a common complaint for all types of shift workers.

There are several other things you can do to make the shift work experience more tolerable. When used properly caffeine can be a boon for shift workers. A recent study found drinking coffee at the beginning of the shift can cut down on workplace mistakes.

Bright light therapy can also help increase alertness. The Sleep Education blog recommends using a light box for 15 minute increments at your workstation during the first half of your shift. Be careful not use a light box towards the end of your shift. Exposure to bright light close to bedtime may make it difficult to sleep.

Some shift workers describe feeling a surge of energy towards the end of shifts, especially after dawn. It’s important to avoid sunlight before trying to sleep. We suggest wearing dark sunglasses on the commute home from work. Also try to make your bedroom as dark as possible, by using blackout curtains.

High temperatures and daytime noise are two other common environmental sleep disruptions for shift workers. The Sleep Education blog suggests running the air conditioning along with a loud fan or noise machine.

Slightly adjusting your sleep schedule on days off may also help your body recover from shift work related sleep deprivation.

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Body Clock Breakthrough Could Lead to Magic Jet Lag Pill

Jumping time zones won’t be so jarring if the findings from a new study pan out. Researchers have pinned down the hormone responsible for regulating circadian rhythms.

This breakthrough could lead to new treatments for jet lag. A hormone supplement in the form of a pill in theory could readjust the human body’s circadian rhythms.
A team of German researchers tested the treatment on lab mice.

The medication metyrapone was able to adjust hormone levels affecting their sleep-wake cycle.

Such a treatment could have a tremendous health benefit for frequent business travelers and rotating shift workers. It’s unknown whether a treatment to rapidly readjust the body clock would be more beneficial than the slower naturally occuring adjustments.

Circadian rhythm sleep disorders such as jet lag have been linked to increased health risks including breast cancer, heart disease and depression.

Planning ahead by slowly adjusting sleeping and waking hours before a trip may reduce the effects of jet lag. Rest periods, exercise and light therapy may also help.

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12-hour shifts take strong toll on nurses, raise mistake risk

Continuing on the theme this morning the negative effects irregular work schedules can have on employees, a new study seemingly condemns a common practice in the medical industry. The results could give hospitals incentive to change scheduling strategies to avoid potentially life-threatening mistakes.

The study found nurses who work 12-hour shifts rarely get restful sleep, and may struggle to keep an attentive eye on patients.

Half of nurses who took vigilance tests tended to have multiple lapses in alertness. The lapses were moderate for 39 percent and frequent for seven percent of nurses who worked lengthy shifts. Factors included sleep prior to shift, caffeine use and fatigue levels.

The amount of sleep nurses gets between 12-hour shifts is alarming. The average sleep time is only 5.5 hours. It gets worse for night-shift nurses, who slept a fragmented 5.2 hours a day.

“With long commutes and family responsibilities, nurses have very little opportunity to rest between shifts,” said Jeanne Geiger-Brown, PhD, principal investigator of the study.

Signs indicate the nurses may suffer from shift work disorder, a form of insomnia caused by work hours that are scheduled during the natural human sleep period.

The study involved 80 registered nurses who worked three consecutive 12-hour shifts. Lapses and median reaction times were measured with the five-minute Palm Psychomotor Vigilance Test.

The abstract associated with this research will be available for viewing Tuesday at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

Image by Christiana Care

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Late-starting shifts harm sleep, limit productivity

The key to maximizing workplace productivity while minimizing fatigue may be a shift start time that allows workers to sleep right before reporting for duty.

New research suggests shifts that start in the late morning to early afternoon work best for employees. Start times between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m. may limit sleep and harm performance.

Sleep can be difficult to come by during the late night shifts because the timing conflicts with the body’s early evening circadian process.

According to the findings employers would benefit by rescheduling shift starting times to maximize employee alertness and sleep. Lead investigator Angela Bowen suggests a change in public policy may be necessary. Government regulations that limit the number of hours worked would also include provisions for shift start times.

“Shifts of equal duration differ in how fatiguing they are depending on the time of day when they are scheduled,” said Bowen. “The same limitation on the number of duty hours may be either overly restrictive if during the day or too liberal if during the night.”

The study used a mathematical formula based on a sleep regulation model that predicts the effects of sleep and wake times on sleep quality and waking fatigue. The researchers used the formula to see the effects of 24 start times, each varying by one-hour increments. The hypothetical work schedule lasted six days. Each shift was nine hours and started at the same time each day.

For those with no choice but to start their shifts during the undesirable late evening hours, the key is to find a sleep schedule that works. Past studies have suggested overnight workers go to sleep in the late morning hours immediately after work and wake up before the start of the early evening peak. On days off, it’s desirable to provide a compromise, by going to sleep at about 3 a.m.

Learn which professions are the worst for sleep.

Image by Shawn McClung

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Colleges hope to lure owls, offer midnight classes

All-night cram sessions and “after-hours” parties are nothing out of the ordinary in the average college town. Some universities are starting notice the night-owl habits of students and are scheduling classes late. And we’re not talking about traditional night classes. These schools are holding class at midnight.

The extremely late classes are to reach out to shift workers and keep up with an increase in enrollment and demand.

An article in this month’s issue of The Scientist profiles the midnight program at the College of Southern Nevada. The school’s main campus is in Las Vegas, which has among the top shift workers per capita in the U.S.

Classes offered include biology, math and appropriately, astronomy.

Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and Clackamas Community College in Oregon also offer midnight classes. Clackamas holds welding classes until 2 a.m.

This is all par for the course for college students who would be up anyway. A recent study found a majority of college students are poor sleepers. Only 30 percent of students reported sleeping at least eight hours per night.

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Study: Caffeine beneficial for shift workers

If you work overnights, drinking a cup of coffee early in your shift might not be a bad idea, new research suggests.

A review of several studies published in the May issue of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found caffeine appears to help cut down mistakes on the job for shift or nighttime workers.

Researchers analyzed the findings of 13 studies examining the effects of caffeine on workers

Most of the studies took place at simulated workplaces inside sleep laboratories. Subjects took caffeine in the form of coffee, energy drinks, pills and caffeinated foods.

Compared to placebos, caffeine was associated with better overall cognitive performance.

Shift workers who took caffeine made fewer errors than those who took naps.

The review was not able to pin down if caffeine could reduce the frequency of work injuries because of a noticeable gap in previous research.

The authors are cautiously supportive of using caffeine to get through shift work.

Past studies have shown caffeine can negatively impact daytime sleep. However AASM task force found your sleep is unlikely to be disrupted if you consume caffeine more than 8 hours before bedtime.

Combining caffeine at the start of an overnight shift with an evening nap may be your best option. A 2006 study found that can improve job performance and reduce sleepiness.

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Study: sleep problems increase risk for injuries at work

Managers take notice - sleep problems can cost businesses big bucks. New research indicates employees who have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep are more at risk for workplace injury.

In a study published in the May 1st issue of SLEEP, Canadian researchers found this was especially true for blue collar workers.

The authors pulled data from the 2000-2001 “Canadian Community Health Survey Cycle.”

The study only included survey participants who were 15 to 64 years old and worked full-time or part-time. Individuals who suffered non-work related injuries were excluded from the study.

Researchers identified 65,485 uninjured workers and 4,099 people who had a work-related injury in the past 12 months. Survey respondents were categorized by gender, job class, and hours per week.

Researchers focused on participants’ responses to the following fields:

“How often do you have trouble going to sleep or staying asleep?”
“Number of hours spent sleeping per night”
“The frequency that sleep is refreshing”
“How often it is difficult to stay awake”
“Sleeping pills taken last month”

By analyzing each of these elements, the authors found those who reported problems sleeping were more likely to report work injuries. Women in this case were more frequently injured than men.

Workers who slept less than six hours per night were at higher risk for injury than people who slept 7-9 hours.

The most injury-prone industries for men were trade and transportation jobs; for women it was processing and manufacturing jobs.

Injury rates also spiked among shift workers. Those with rotating or split shifts were at highest risk.

Learn more about the dangers of drowsy driving and the worst professions for sleep.

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Sleep problems often persist after shift work, not permanent

There’s some hope for folks ready to give up the struggle with the overnight shift: insomnia and other sleep problems often associated with those difficult hours may be difficult to shake when it’s over, but it’s not permanent.

Research also shows more years of shift work does not lead to worse sleep problems.

These findings were part of a 10 year longitudinal study in the April issue of Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Researchers followed workers in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s over various lengths of time.

Former shift workers had more sleep-related problems than those still on the graveyard shift or people who worked normal hours. Researchers reason this group is “self-selected,” meaning they were predisposed to have sleep disorders, and their difficulties persisted after they left their jobs.

Those who were still in early in their professional lives had the most problems. They were most likely to leave their jobs.

Shift workers also had more problems sleeping than daytime workers, often waking up too early.

For more on the night shift, go here to find a sleep schedule that works, or go to Sleepeducation.com to learn everything you need to know.

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The world of overnight work

In many workplaces, the differences the day shift and the overnight shift are quite literally night and day. Life goes at a different pace.

The news industry is one of those cases. Although there is always the potential for hectic breaking news, third-shift journalists are sometimes able to dial back their usual frantic pace. Last week a staff photographer for the New York Times posted a gallery of pictures taken while she was on the clock overnights. The normally crowded streets of the big apple she depicts in her photos resemble colorful moonscapes.

Other careers, like law enforcement or emergency response, can actually pick up the pace in the early morning hours.

This American Life found an interesting case of this. In December, Ira Glass and his staff at Chicago Public Radio dedicated an entire show to the world that happens while most people are asleep.

In “Act One: Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?” A reporting team profiled a bustling overnight fruit and vegetable marketplace in the Bronx, and the traders’ everyday triumphs and frustrations.

Many of the people interviewed in the segment swore by the 3rd shift. For others it was a love-hate relationship. The reporter notes a lot of the workers at the marketplace were divorced. Most blamed the night shift for “getting in the way of life.”

A list of worst jobs for sleep

A sleep strategy for overnight workers

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Sleep & Work: The “Worst-Sleeping” Jobs

No one wants to have a bad-paying job. But what about a “bad-sleeping” job? Are employees in some industries more likely to be sleep deprived?

A new study examined the data. The results were published this month in the journal Sleep.

The study involved 66,099 employed workers in the U.S. They answered questions for the National Health Interview Survey between 2004 and 2007.

Participants were asked, “On average, how many hours of sleep do you get in a 24-hour period?” Short sleep duration was defined as six hours of sleep or less in a 24-hour period.

Results show that an estimated 28.4 percent of U.S. workers had a short sleep duration in 2007. This was lower than the rates of short sleep from 2004 to 2006. But comparisons with older data suggest that the average sleep duration has declined among workers over the last two decades.

The rate of short sleep was about 37 percent in people who worked more than one job or more than 40 hours per week. The following were the five “worst-sleeping” industries. They had the highest estimated rates of short sleep duration:

• Management of companies and enterprises (40.5%)
• Transportation and warehousing (37.1%)
• Manufacturing (34.8%)
• Public administration (33.5%)
• Information (31.4%)

These estimates represent more than 10 million workers who reported getting six or fewer hours of daily sleep. The authors reported that people in these industries are likely to perform shift work. Early-morning start times, night shifts and rotating shifts may be a cause of short sleep duration.

What about “good-sleeping” jobs? These industries had the lowest estimated rates of short sleep duration:

• Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (23.1%)
• Education services (26.7%)
• Other services, except public administration (26.9%)
• Real estate, rental & leasing (27.2%)
• Professional, scientific & technical service (27.4%)

The authors estimated that about 40 million U.S. workers sleep less than six hours per day. Chronic sleep deprivation can increase health risks. It also can impair job performance and raise the risk of workplace injuries.

The study was conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The NIOSH is part of the CDC.

Another recent study found that the odds ratio for short sleep was increased by 19 percent in full-time workers. Another study found that women who work full time sleep less than men.

Read more about sleep and work.

Image by Stephen Petit

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