Why Shift Work Causes Sleep Problems

In addition to the alarm clock beside your bed, the clock on your mantelpiece or your wrist watch, all of which, if you're anything like me, govern your life to a great extent, you also have your own internal clock that dictates the rhythm of your body.

This internal clock controls many of your body's functions, regulating such things as temperature and the release of hormones and, most importantly, telling you when it is time to go to sleep and to get up.

Following the pattern of day and night (light and darkness) your internal clock tracks a pattern of roughly 24 hours thus giving your body a 24 hour rhythm or, to give it its full title a circadian rhythm – from the Latin circa (about) dies (a day).

When disruption to the body's circadian rhythm occurs as a result of shift work, you may suffer from temporary sleep disorders such as transient insomnia or excessive daytime sleepiness. Left untreated, transient sleep problems associated with a change in your work schedule can become chronic and in serious cases can even require medical intervention.

If you work early morning, night or rotating shifts, you may suffer from insomnia or trouble sleeping thanks to your altered schedule. You may also suffer from excessive fatigue during your waking hours because you are not getting enough sleep or because the sleep you are getting is not as refreshing and restorative as it needs to be.

These types of sleep problems may eventually reduce as you adjust to your shift work schedule, but for many people, the insomnia and/or excessive fatigue does not completely disappear until they resume a normal daytime work schedule.

What's more, a prolonged struggle with insomnia can give rise to much more serious sleep disorders and a variety of related physical and psychological conditions. For example sleep apnea, a common sleep disorder affecting some 5 percent of the general population can be seen in nearly 12 percent of shift workers.

Shift work also places you at increased risk of chronic cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems. Heartburn, indigestion, menstrual irregularities, colds, flu, weight gain and high blood pressure are all seen more amongst shift workers.

The root of your sleep problem is actually very simple.

By working through the night, you are forcing yourself to remain awake during normal sleeping hours (and, conversely, to sleep during normal waking hours), thereby constantly fighting against the natural cycles managed by your body's internal clock.

Also called "shift lag", because of its similarity to jet lag, shift work-induced sleep problems can engender numerous psychological and physical problems, not the least of which is a heightened risk of physical injury caused by operating vehicles or heavy equipment when not fully alert.

Between 10 and 20 percent of shift worker are reported to regularly fall asleep at work, although collecting statistics on this particular question is no easy matter as you can imagine.

Fatigue at work can lead not simply to a lack of concentration and sloppy work, but can result in serious errors, accidents, injury and even fatalities.

The cost associated with shift work fatigue runs into billions of dollars every year and thousands of deaths every year are also linked to shift work fatigue.

Indeed some of the most high profile disasters of modern times have been attributed to fatigue including the explosion at Chernobyl, the failure of the space shuttle Columbia and the grounding of the Exxon Valdez.

There are several types of shift work induced sleep disorder including shift work induced insomnia. >>>