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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When Sleeping in on Weekends Isn't Enough

Make sleep a priority during the work week. Catching up on your sleep during the weekend may not be enough to stave off the effects of sleep loss.

A study published in the August issue of SLEEP found the impairments caused by sleep-deprivation such as lapses in attention and delayed reaction time remained even after sleeping in for a day. Full recovery after sleep restriction may take multiple nights of extended sleep.

The laboratory-based study involved 159 healthy adults who were about 30 years old. More than half of the participants were African American. All but 17 of the subjects had to sleep from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. for five consecutive nights. On the sixth night they were randomly assigned to one of six lengths of recovery sleep.

The participants took a 30-minute long computerized neurobehavioral assessment every two hours throughout the duration of the study. The assessment included a Psychomotor Vigilance Test and the Karonlinska Sleepiness Scale. A modified Maintenance of Wakefulness Test was also given at the start of the study, after the fifth night and during the recovery day.

Researchers noticed a reduction in impairment after the night of recovery sleep. The improvements increased for lengthier sleep times, the effects of sleep loss were never fully eliminated. Lapses of attention, subjective sleepiness, reaction times and fatigue scores were above baseline for all 27 participants assigned to 10 hours of recovery sleep.

Solving long-term sleep debt takes more than one night of recovery sleep. Because most people are unable to stay asleep for much longer than 10 hours it’s impossible to close the gap in a single night.



Another interesting finding involved the participants who were assigned to extreme sleep restriction on the sixth night instead of recovery sleep. Performance and alertness significantly deteriorated after a final night with little to no sleep.
The study shows that burning the candle at both ends during the workweek will hurt your ability to perform on the job and the problems may not end when the weekend rolls around.

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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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Energy Pods let Google Employees Snooze in Style

Here’s one big reason why Google is consistently near the top of every annual “Best Companies to Work For” list. Among the many well-documented perks of working for Google is the leeway to step away from the desk and take a nap. Google stands out from the other companies with nap rooms by offering a stylistically futuristic sleep pod right out of the show Caprica.

That oversized salon hair dryer you see above is a state-of-the-art Energy Pod made by Metronaps. The reclining bed underneath the big white visor looks a lot like a dental chair.

Features include a built-in music player that produces soothing sounds and an alarm that wakes users up with a gentle combination of lights and vibration.

The Metronaps Energy Pod retails for around $8,000 - no small price, but still less expensive than ludicrously priced European luxury beds.

Google’s solution to workplace fatigue appears to be a preferable alternative to lunchtime car naps or sneaky catnaps in the bathroom stalls. It’s good to see the world’s most influential tech firm notice the building scientific evidence of the performance benefits of napping. Now if only more companies would adopt this practice maybe we’ll all stop looking down on workplace naps... I’m looking at you Ken Griffey Jr.

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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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Work & Sleep: Are Adults Sleeping Less in the U.S.?

Have adults in the U.S. been getting less sleep over the past three decades? A new study examined time-use surveys to find out. The results were published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep.

The study analyzed data from eight time-use surveys. The earliest survey was conducted in 1975. The most recent data came from the 2006 American Time Use Survey.

Surveys were completed by more than 73,000 adults. They were at least 18 years of age. “Short sleep” was defined as less than six hours of sleep, nap or rest in a 24-hour period.

Results show that the overall odds of being a short sleeper have not increased over the past 31 years. The highest proportion of short sleepers was 11.8 percent in the 1998-99 survey. The lowest proportion was 7.5 percent in the 1992-94 survey. The proportion was 9.3 percent in the 2006 survey.

“The assertion that sleep durations have declined drastically in the U.S. population in general over the past 30 years may be inaccurate,” wrote the authors.

But the study did find a significant trend for full-time workers. Their odds ratio for short sleep was increased by 19 percent.

“Longer work times seem to be the most important cofactor for short sleep,” the authors concluded.

Unmarried adults, those with some college education, and African Americans also had higher odds of short sleep. Women, older adults, Asians, Hispanics and married people were less likely to be short sleepers.

The authors noted that the 24-hour time-use surveys split the sleep period. They combined the end of one night of sleep with the beginning of the second night of sleep. Daytime sleep also was added to the total.

And time categorized as “sleep” included activities such as “resting” and “getting up.” Thus the time-use surveys may have overestimated true sleep time.

Dr. Mathias Basner wrote a commentary on the study in the same issue of Sleep. He noted that chronic, partial sleep deprivation remains an important public health issue.

Why do millions of Americans put their health at risk by failing to get enough sleep? One reason may be that short sleepers simply adjust to regular sleep loss.

“Those who do need more sleep simply may have habituated to feeling sleepy,” Basner wrote. “Many of the short sleepers may have ‘forgot­ten’ how well they could feel and perform if they satisfied their individual sleep need.”

In October the Sleep Education Blog reported on new survey data about the sleep of people in the U.S. In May it took a closer look at time-use survey data.

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Work & Insomnia: Sleepless Off the Job

A new study from Japan shows that insomnia may be linked to your job.

The study involved 1,022 workers; they had an average age of 39 years. They were evaluated across two years.

Results show that some workers were more likely to have insomnia for the length of the study. Employees with low social support at work were twice as likely to have persistent insomnia. Those who had an “effort-reward imbalance” also were more than two times as likely to have ongoing insomnia.

The study also found that some workers were more likely to develop insomnia by the end of the study. The risk of having a new case of insomnia was 75 percent higher in people who were overcommitted to work. Good sleepers were 72 percent more likely to develop insomnia if they had high job strain.

In September the Sleep Education Blog reported that people with a low-strain job had the highest sleep quality; exposure to a high-strain work environment was associated with elevated levels of sleep complaints.

In April the Sleep Education Blog reported that female executives may be more prone to sleep problems than male executives. The risk is greatest for women who have isolated, demanding jobs.

How can you prevent job stress from disturbing your sleep? One way is to avoid “bedwork.” Never bring any work to bed with you; instead you should make your bed a refuge from your job.

Get other helpful tips and learn more about job stress and sleep at SleepEducation.com.

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Sleep May Help You Eat Healthier

A new study examined the relationships between sleep, job strain and food choices.

The Harvard study involved 542 men; their average age was 49 years. They were all motor freight workers who often work long hours and have irregular shifts.

Results show that 51 percent reported getting adequate sleep. Almost 88 percent were satisfied with their job; about 30 percent reported job strain.

Statistical analysis found that adequate sleep was associated with lack of job strain and healthful eating choices. Work experiences also were related to healthful food choices; but the effect was no longer significant when adequate sleep was included in the model.

The authors concluded that adequate sleep is associated with more healthful food choices; sleep also may mediate the effects of workplace experiences. As a result workplace health programs should be responsive to workers' sleep patterns.

“Our findings suggest that sleep adequacy, by enhancing helpful dietary choices, is one means by which workplace factors may influence chronic disease risk,” they wrote.

In September the Sleep Education Blog reported that eating when you should be sleeping may lead to weight gain.

Other studies also have found that how long you sleep may affect how you eat. You may crave more high-calorie, high-carbohydrate foods when you are tired.

What about you – do you eat healthier foods when you are well rested?

Image by barbarina

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The Good Life: Sleep & Retirement

A study in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Sleep suggests that your sleep may improve when you retire.

Results show that 24.2 percent of workers had disturbed sleep in the last year before retirement; this dropped to 17.8 percent in the first year after retiring. The odds of having disturbed sleep in the seven years after retirement were 26 percent lower than in the seven years before retiring.

The greatest reduction in sleep disturbances was reported by people who had depression or mental fatigue while they were working. Depressed workers were 45 percent less likely to have disturbed sleep in the years after retiring.

Men and night-shift workers also benefited greatly from retirement; their odds of having sleep disturbances dropped by 34 percent. In contrast, the odds of reporting disturbed sleep dropped by only 11 percent in women.

The authors link the sleep improvement to the removal of job stress. Sleep improved more in retired managers than in lower-level employees. It also improved more in workers who reported higher psychological job demands.

The odds of having disturbed sleep increased slowly with age. This occurred in both working and retired adults.

People who retired early because of an illness or disability were more likely to have disturbed sleep in retirement. They had a 46 percent increased risk of sleep disturbances after retiring.

The study involved 14,714 employees from the French national gas and electricity company. They retired between 1990 and 2006. The study authors noted that these workers enjoyed some highly favorable employment and retirement conditions.

Their job security was guaranteed. They retired at an average age of 55 years. And they received a company-paid pension that was 80 percent of their salary.

That may sound like a dream to many people in the U.S. But survey data released by the CDC last week suggest that U.S. workers also may enjoy a “sleep benefit” when they retire.

Forty-four percent of retired adults were sound sleepers; they reported getting enough rest or sleep every day in the past month. In contrast, only 29 percent of employed adults were sound sleepers.

In September the Sleep Education Blog reported that your job may be affecting how you sleep. Learn more about sleep and work.

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