Are Shift Workers Prone to Snoring?
Shift work became commonplace in America following World War II. Increasing competition and rising costs made it difficult for many industries to justify operating factories only forty hours per week—less than one fourth of capacity. A 168-hour round-the-clock work week was instituted that allowed for continuous operation and quadrupled output.
Hospitals, police and fire departments, and the post office have long operated on a twenty-four-hour basis; now factories, grocery stores, and many other businesses also never close. Some must work while others sleep. Today 22 million people, one fourth of America’s workforce, are shift workers.
Some people work only at night, and others rotate between day, evening, and night shifts. Although there are more than 700 variations of rotating shift schedules, the most common is the “seven swing.”
With this schedule there are seven straight eight-hour day shifts, then two days off; seven eight-hour night shifts, then two days off; followed by seven eight-hour evening shifts, then two days off.
“Such a life,” Dr. Martin Moore-Ede of Harvard Medical School maintains, “represents the equivalent of continually spending a week on Boston time followed by a week in Paris, followed by a week on Tokyo time.”
Needless to say, this system almost guarantees that shift workers will be in a state of perpetual jet lag with increased chances of snoring, in addition to without ever having had the pleasure of leaving home.
Hospitals, police and fire departments, and the post office have long operated on a twenty-four-hour basis; now factories, grocery stores, and many other businesses also never close. Some must work while others sleep. Today 22 million people, one fourth of America’s workforce, are shift workers.
Some people work only at night, and others rotate between day, evening, and night shifts. Although there are more than 700 variations of rotating shift schedules, the most common is the “seven swing.”
With this schedule there are seven straight eight-hour day shifts, then two days off; seven eight-hour night shifts, then two days off; followed by seven eight-hour evening shifts, then two days off.
“Such a life,” Dr. Martin Moore-Ede of Harvard Medical School maintains, “represents the equivalent of continually spending a week on Boston time followed by a week in Paris, followed by a week on Tokyo time.”
Needless to say, this system almost guarantees that shift workers will be in a state of perpetual jet lag with increased chances of snoring, in addition to without ever having had the pleasure of leaving home.
HOW SHIFT WORK AFFECTS PRODUCTIVITY
Traditional shift schedules assume that people can adapt to most work cycles. In reality, employees are pushed far beyond what the human body can reasonably withstand. Shift workers work 400 more hours a year than those who work only 40 daytime hours (the equivalent of ten additional 40-hour weeks).
Trying to work and remain alert at a time when the brain is calling for sleep is futile. Our natural sleep-wake cycle, regulated by light and darkness and programmed over thousands of years of evolution, prohibits us from adapting to night or rotating shifts and irregular work schedules in an easy manner. If we operated machinery or equipment in the same manner as we “operate” our shift workers, we would be accused of reckless endangerment.
Trying to work and remain alert at a time when the brain is calling for sleep is futile. Our natural sleep-wake cycle, regulated by light and darkness and programmed over thousands of years of evolution, prohibits us from adapting to night or rotating shifts and irregular work schedules in an easy manner. If we operated machinery or equipment in the same manner as we “operate” our shift workers, we would be accused of reckless endangerment.
Did You Know?
More than half of all shift workers admit to falling asleep on the job at least once a week.
Proneness to Errors
Sleepy shift workers are prone to making errors that result in poor-quality work and reduced productivity. They tend to have a much higher chance of being involved in accidents and misfortunes—at work, on the highway, and at home compared to those that work during the day.
Police fall asleep while stopped at traffic lights and report being awakened by the horns of cars waiting behind them. In a recent survey of police officers, 80 percent reported they had fallen asleep and snoring loudly once a week while working the night shift.
Sleep-deprived employees who are responsible for manning the assembly line tend to fall off their stools, a number of non-working products slide past quality inspectors who can’t help but fall asleep, and tired forklift operators end up crashing their machines into racks and walls.
Exhausted resident physicians working the night shift report falling asleep while taking patient histories. Some have hallucinated while doing surgical procedures. Nearly half report falling asleep at the wheel on the way home.
Sleepy shift workers are prone to making errors that result in poor-quality work and reduced productivity. They tend to have a much higher chance of being involved in accidents and misfortunes—at work, on the highway, and at home compared to those that work during the day.
Police fall asleep while stopped at traffic lights and report being awakened by the horns of cars waiting behind them. In a recent survey of police officers, 80 percent reported they had fallen asleep and snoring loudly once a week while working the night shift.
Sleep-deprived employees who are responsible for manning the assembly line tend to fall off their stools, a number of non-working products slide past quality inspectors who can’t help but fall asleep, and tired forklift operators end up crashing their machines into racks and walls.
Exhausted resident physicians working the night shift report falling asleep while taking patient histories. Some have hallucinated while doing surgical procedures. Nearly half report falling asleep at the wheel on the way home.
The Financial Toll
The financial toll in terms of productivity and safety that results from reduced alertness is more than $70 billion per year. For example, the launch of the shuttle Columbia on January 6, 1986, almost resulted in a tragedy because of operator fatigue. Technicians had been working twelve-hour night shifts for three consecutive days.
In a sleep-deprived state, one operator inadvertently drained 4,000 pounds of liquid oxygen from the shuttle external tank just five minutes prior to the scheduled launch. Luckily, the mission was aborted just thirty-one seconds before liftoff, because of a secondary effect on the engine-inlet temperature. The liquid oxygen loss was undetected until after the postponement.
The crew of the Challenger shuttle were not as fortunate. Sleep researchers blamed contentious last-minute assessments of the reliability of O-ring seals to the lack of sleep and uneven working hours of NASA managers who were associated in the decision to initiate the launch. A couple of the three top managers had slept for only a few hours for three straight nights before that calamitous mission.
HOW SHIFT WORK AFFECTS TIME OFF
When shift workers manage to get a weekend off, the accumulated fatigue caused by constantly changing work hours leaves them exhausted and in a state of near collapse. It’s difficult for them to get needed sleep without snoring, and in addition to fully participate in family and social activities.
• Shift workers find it difficult to coordinate their free time with their children, who are either in bed or at school.
• Shift workers report problems in fulfilling their sexual roles with their spouses, often leading to marital dissatisfaction.
• Shift workers must leave evening social events early in order to get to work on time.
• Even with as much as 30 to 40 percent more pay than their daytime counterparts, shift workers consistently rate their job satisfaction lower than do day workers, and they keep looking into getting a day job.
• Shift workers find it difficult to coordinate their free time with their children, who are either in bed or at school.
• Shift workers report problems in fulfilling their sexual roles with their spouses, often leading to marital dissatisfaction.
• Shift workers must leave evening social events early in order to get to work on time.
• Even with as much as 30 to 40 percent more pay than their daytime counterparts, shift workers consistently rate their job satisfaction lower than do day workers, and they keep looking into getting a day job.
HOW SHIFT WORK AFFECTS SLEEP AND HEALTH
Based on a comprehensive study made by the American Sleep Disorders Association, several million people experience sleep disorders as well as snoring issues due to working on shift hours. Researchers at the Institute for Circadian Physiology in Boston, Massachusetts; have discovered that more than fifty percent of shift workers have sleeping issues and many tend to make loud snoring noises when they do fall asleep. Shift workers average one to two hours less sleep than their daytime counterparts during the week, and three or four hours less on weekends.
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Caffeine Abuse
Shift workers report an increased use of alcohol to induce sleep (a dubious technique), and excessive smoking and caffeine intake to aid in alertness. One twenty-year-old hospital orderly developed sleep paralysis after working the midnight to 8 A.M. shift five nights a week for eight months.
He would awaken during the night and be unable to move for up to fifteen minutes. He had excessive fatigue during the day, which he tried to combat by taking three and a half hours of naps per day and drinking four cups of coffee and two cola drinks daily. Consuming these substances further exacerbate their snoring condition.
