Complete the notes below.

Background:

• 31 ………………………. in number of night workers because of 24-hour shopping/services

• Need to examine effects of changing work and sleep habits

• US and British research found these lead to health problems

Main Causes:

         A) 32 ……………………….

• regulates daily life

• connected to behavioural patterns and cycles of 33. ………………………. and ……………………….

• programmes us to be awake and asleep at certain times

B) Sleep Debt

• impossible to get enough sleep during daytir

C) 34 ……………………….

• different working/sleeping times ‘dislocation’

Effects:

         A) Physical

• higher incidence of 35. ………………………. problems and ………………………. problems

• more minor illnesses, suggesting that immunity of shift workers is affected

 B) Psychological

• most common: 36. ……………………….

• 37. ………………………. affected, e.g. decision-making, planning, which

 regulate our 38. ……………………….

C) Social

       Night shift work can lead to:

• destruction of 39. ………………………. and other

 relationships, e.g. 40. ……………………….

• eventually, for individuals: social isolation

31.a huge increase

32.internal clock

33.light; dark

34.unsocial hours

35.stomach

36.depression

37.mental ability

38.performance

39.family life

40.peer group/friends

Speaker: Good afternoon everybody. In this session I want to continue looking at health issues relating to the workplace, and I’d like to focus today on night shift workers and the health problems that are associated with their working hours.

I’m sure you’re all aware that there has been a huge increase in the number of workers doing regular night shifts in recent years, mainly because of the number of shops and services now open 24 hours, seven days a week. And we need to look more closely at the consequences of changing work and sleep patterns

Now, research that has been carried out in both the US and Britain on night working suggests that it leads to a lot of health problems for the workers, and they point to three main reasons for this.

The first one is what they call the internal clock, and this is a basic sort of program in our brains. This tells us that at certain times we should feel hungry, at other times we should be awake, at other times we should be asleep, and so on. And it seems to be generally accepted by all the experts in the field that this clock is linked not just to our behavioral habits, but to cycles of light and dark, and that means that we’re programmed to be awake when it’s light, i.e., during the day, and asleep when it’s dark.

The second thing is that night workers are continually fighting against what is termed a sleep debt. By this, the researchers mean that it’s practically impossible for them to get a sufficient amount of sleep in daylight hours. In fact, studies suggest that on average night workers only get between five and six hours of sleep rather than the eight they need, and the effects of not getting enough sleep can also lead to all sorts of problems.

The third cause of these problems is the unsocial hours that night workers have to keep. The fact that they are working when their families and friends are sleeping, and vice versa, and that kind of dislocation from their social group can be very damaging.

Okay, so let’s take a closer look at some of these effects. If we look at the physical effects first, we can see that studies on long-term shift workers found that they were much more likely to get heart problems than day workers. In addition, there seems to be a very high incidence of stomach problems, for example, ulcers among night shift workers, and although this may be partly due to the wrong sort of diet, such as snacking on fast food, it can’t be just explained by eating habits.

Finally, there is evidence to suggest that night shift workers also get ill more frequently with minor problems like colds and infections. The frequency of these illnesses is much higher than among day workers, which indicates that night working can damage immunity to illness, and of course this leads to a lot of absence from work too.

However, although the physical impact of working nights can be severe, perhaps the real problems are psychological ones, and the most common problem is depression. This seems to be the inevitable result of the constant feeling of tiredness and a lack of energy that night workers universally complain of.

Secondly, there is a lot of evidence from accident statistics to suggest that mental abilities are badly affected, and that means, for example, decision-making ability and planning ability—these are what control our performance. For example, the highest number of errors on the roads occur between 3 a.m and 5 a.m, the point in our internal clock when we feel most sleepy.

Finally, there are the social problems where night working impacts the family and social life of employees. The first is obviously the breakup of family life, as seen from divorce statistics, which occurs more frequently in the case of night workers. But there’s also the breakdown of other relationships—not just within the family but among peers. Night workers tend to lose touch with friends, and these relationships, especially for long-term night workers, are very difficult to rebuild.

This eventually leads to social isolation for the individual, and of course that has consequences for the whole community too. So we can begin to see the real cost of night working. What we need to do now is to look at how we’re going to do it.