Stay awake: Understanding the relationship between sleep disorders and shift work
Independent risk manager Jeff Marshall details an emerging risk for occupations involving changing shifts: Shift work sleep disorder and its impact on brain function.
Some work-related injuries are easy to see — cuts, bruises, broken bones, or even more serious incidents like lost limbs. However, some are a little harder to diagnose, measure and attribute to being employment-related. Among these are post-traumatic stress disorder, hypertension, carpal tunnel syndrome, and an issue that can affect every aspect of our lives…sleep disorders.
Many may not consider a poor night’s rest a work-related issue, but for individuals who work changing shifts like the police, commercial road crews, nurses, doctors, and those in manufacturing, shift work sleep disorder is a very real problem.
Jeff Marshall, an independent risk and claims manager, and a former board-certified workers’ compensation attorney, explains what this looks like in the workplace and the implications for businesses and their employees.
Marshall explains that shift work sleep disorder is also known as circadian rhythm sleep disorder and likens it to how travelers feel when they experience jet lag from traveling. “Anyone who flies from the East Coast to the West Coast and then back again, or someone who’s flying internationally, their bodies are out of sync and they’re tired. They’re a little slower, a little bit weaker and they’re just out of sorts, and that’s what shift work sleep disorder is like.”
Travelers can usually recover after a few days because their bodies have a chance to recuperate. Shift workers, however, can have their circadian rhythm constantly disrupted because their sleep cycles change from working daytime, to nighttime and sometimes into the graveyard shifts, so they never get a chance to fully recover.
This disruption can affect their ability to think clearly, focus and make decisions. For machinery operators, those in the medical field or in law enforcement, their ability to make split-second decisions can be significantly impacted.
Marshall explains what sleep deprivation can look like, some of the physical impacts, and why insurers and business owners need to be cognizant of the effects on workers. For more information on all of these aspects and more, listen to the podcast above or subscribe to Insurance Speak on Spotify, Apple Music or Libsyn.
Related:
The monster under the bed: Sleep deprivation’s long-term risks