Risks Drawbacks of Shift Work
Without shift work, we would have few of the services we rely on. Nurses, police officers and fire fighters all work shifts protecting their local communities and helping vulnerable people. But do we appreciate the sacrifices they make to work for the good of us all?
Shift work has potential health risks and actual consequences. Spare a thought, first of all, for the families of shift workers. They may hardly see their parents or partners from one day to the next. They may see them bleary-eyed, exhausted, or disappearing out of the door just as everyone else is settling down for the evening. They will know to keep quiet during the day and to wince every time the phone rings, because the shift worker in the family is desperately trying to sleep even though it's a bright sunny day. This is an exaggeration to some extent, because modern shift patterns allow for four days on, four days off, or for switching between night shifts and day shifts. This means shift workers do get to see their families, but at a cost to their health.
The human body has lower energy levels and lower blood pressure at night. Body temperature also drops. The body and the mind prepare for sleep. How then, can anyone be at maximum energy level at 2am? How can you take life-changing decisions, thinking clearly about health and safety, if you are trying to operate when your body does not want you to? People do, because they learn to adapt. In fact it is very hard to adapt completely, especially if you are switching the times of your shifts. The fact is, accidents and lower performance are more likely to happen working at night. In some occupations this means increased danger for the employee, in others it means greater likelihood of being fired.
So then shift workers, at least some of the time, sleep during the day. This is the time the body is most active. Outside temperatures are higher, it is brighter, whatever curtains you have, and everyone else is living and working around you. So noise is much greater. However you try, you just cannot achieve the same depth and quality of sleep during daylight hours as you can at night.
Even if you are not working through the night, you might be working split-shifts, which means you have just a few hours' rest in the middle of a very long, perhaps 12 hour shift. Trying to snatch sleep here is just as difficult.
It means shift workers suffer a semi-permanent state of sleep deprivation. This has potential consequences for psychological well-being as well as physical ones. Shift work has been associated with increased risk of gastro-enteritis and indigestion.
It is also associated with reproductive issues in women. The UK's Health and Safety Executive asks women to consider shift work as "a potential risk to reproduction".
Beyond that, shift work may exacerbate existing health issues and may affect the working of any drugs an individual is taking.
These are serious issues that are worth consideration before taking shift work. However, these are all generalities and shift work does in fact suit some people who do have more energy at night than most of us. Shift work also suits some people through its flexibility. It does come with risks and associated problems however, and these need to be weighed thoughtfully.
