Shift work and irregular working hours are increasingly common in today’s fast-paced world, impacting millions of workers across various industries. Understanding how these non-traditional work schedules affect health and productivity is crucial for employers and employees. Today, we’re delving into the complexities of shift work and working hours to uncover the best practices for managing these challenges.
In this post, we’ll examine the effects of shift work on physical and mental health, discuss the potential risks associated with irregular hours, and offer practical strategies to mitigate these impacts. By the end, you’ll clearly understand how to navigate shift work challenges and promote a healthier work-life balance.
What You’ll Learn
- Impact on Health: Discover how shift work and irregular hours can affect your physical and mental health, including common issues like sleep disturbances and stress.
- Risks and Challenges: Understand the potential dangers of non-traditional work schedules, such as increased fatigue and decreased productivity.
- Effective Strategies: Learn practical strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of shift work, including tips for better sleep, nutrition, and time management.
Introduction
Shift work is characterized by working outside of standard hours. Because it includes night work, the normal wake-sleep cycle (circadian rhythm) is disrupted, potentially impacting the workers’ physical and mental health. Shift work impacts four broad health domains: metabolic health, risk of cancer, cardiovascular health, and mental health (James et al., 2017).
Advantages of Shift Work
Some workers who work shift work appreciate the short-term advantages:
- Reduction in night work and fewer consecutive night shifts.
- Larger blocks of time for relaxation and healing.
- Improved quality of leisure time.
- Reduction of social problems and pressure associated with seven-day shifts and permanent night shifts.
Disadvantages of Shift Work
Circadian misalignment affects metabolic, cardiovascular, and mental health and increases the risk of cancer. It does this by inducing sleep deficiency, hormonal imbalance, impaired glucose metabolism, inflammation, and dysregulated cell cycles.
There are also several medical conditions linked to shift work, including gastrointestinal dysfunction, compromised immune function, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.
From a lifestyle and performance perspective, some studies indicate that workers may cope with twelve-hour workdays while others suggest that performance deteriorates. Alertness and performance remain most affected during night shifts, given a lack of circadian adaptation to night work. Although workers often perceive less alertness on the first night shift, objective performance is equally impaired on subsequent nights (Ganesan et al., 2019), not only on the first night.
Extended Shifts
An increase in work duration and reduction in recovery time may induce chronic fatigue, which manifests as symptoms of tiredness (even after a period of sleep), psychological problems (mental irritability, moods of depression (Torquati et al., 2019)), a disinclination to work, and general loss of vitality. Disrupted sleep patterns, digestive troubles including stomach ulcers, disturbance of eating patterns, and loss of appetite accompany this state of chronic fatigue.
Some medical doctors and ergonomists consider the change of work practice to three or four days with increased daily work hours damaging to health, including a non-linear increased risk of cardiovascular disease (Torquati et al., 2018). They believe that even increasing to nine or ten working hours per day may lead to excessive fatigue and increased absenteeism through sickness. Job design and environmental factors such as lighting and air quality impact the effects of fatigue and must also be considered.
Twelve-hour shifts offer definite advantages for some workers’ social lives, offering more consecutive days of leisure time than most other schedules. The drawback is that little free time is available on workdays, disrupting family life and restricting social contacts and opportunities to participate in group activities.
The primary criteria that affect a worker’s adjustment to twelve-hour shifts include:
- Age – older workers may experience difficulty adjusting to twelve-hour shifts, mainly if they had been on a different roster system.
- Relationship status – single people may find meal organization and social contact are affected. In contrast, married persons may experience difficulty with their relationship due to a lack of contact time during shifts.
- Parental status – availability of childcare and quality of time spent with children.
- Personal hobbies and interests – rostering may interfere with team sports or the organization of activities.
- Education and training.
- Shift work experience – those on a permanent night shift may experience difficulty altering their lifestyles to a new shift system.
Summary
In addition to the risks described earlier, consideration must also be given to exposure to agents such as noise, vibration, chemicals, and extreme temperatures when working extended shifts since occupational exposure limits have been developed from the concept of a five-day working week of eight hours per day. This implies a balance exists between the accumulation of contaminants at work and its elimination when not at work.
Helpful Resources
- Work Hours Log Book, by Dendol Books
- Making Night Shift Work, by Steve Frei
- Occupational Exposure Limits Blog Post, by Megan Tranter
Bibliography
Ganesan, S., Magee, M., Stone, J., Mulhall, M., Collins, A., Howard, M., Lockley, S., Rajaratnam, S., & Sletten, T. (2019). The Impact of Shift Work on Sleep, Alertness and Performance in Healthcare Workers. Scientific Reports, 9(4635), 1-13. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40914-x.pdf
James, S., Honn, K., Gaddameedhi, S., & Van Dongen, H. (2017). Shift Work: Disrupted Circadian Rhythms and Sleep—Implications for Health and Well-being. Current Sleep Medicine Reports, 3, 104-112. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40675-017-0071-6
Torquati, L., Mielke, G., Brown, W., Burton, N., & Kolbe-Alexander, T. (2019). Shift Work and Poor Mental Health: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies. American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), 109, e13-e20. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305278
Torquati, L., Mielke, G., Brown, W., & Kolbe-Alexander, T. (2018). Shift work and the risk of cardiovascular disease. A systematic review and meta-analysis including dose–response relationship. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 44(3), 229-238. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26567001
