What is Shift Work Sleep Disorder
Insomnia and Excessive Sleepiness
Shift work sleep disorder is a condition that affects circadian rhythm of the body, and often causes insomnia and also excessive sleepiness, affecting those individuals that do shift works outside the typical period of sleep.
It would more often affect people that do night shifts, rotating shifts, long hours and any kind of hours that don’t fit into a standard 9 to 5 day.
The two main symptoms of this condition are called insomnia and excessive sleepiness, and they occur because of sleeping and woking at non-standard times.
Because people try to optimise their sleep environment, oft that shortens total daily sleep time. As a result people feel sleepy, the performance is reduced, they will dozy and often experience fatigue, which then can lead to an accident.
Manage Your Sleep-Wake Schedule
Mainly this happens because the sleep-wake schedule is not aligned with the circadian body rhythm. Also because a person is trying to sleep in abnormal hours, the sleep is often interrupted by noise, social things and other factors. As a result these people are sleep-deprived. The number of studies have found out that people doing shift work have an increased possibility of developing diseases such as:
- Сancer
- Digestive problems
- Heart disease
- Also have a higher risk of being involved in an accident
There are certain things that can be done to minimise the effects of your working schedule on you, and we will suggest here a few that hopefully will help to fix a problem.
Unfortunately, the number one advise would be to try and switch to a regular schedule, which means sleeping at night. However we understand that it is not always possible, so here are the things you can do at home.
What to Do?
Firstly, you need to be in control of sound, light and temperature in your room. You need to make sure that the room where you sleep in is dark, so you can see no light. If needed, wear earplugs that will block all sounds. Keep the room cool, as it is hard to sleep and to fall asleep when it is hot.
Secondly, try to develop basic healthy habits, like eating a healthy and balanced diet. Some people put on weight because of their working schedule, because they tend to eat unhealthy take-away meals, that are high in fat and calories.
Do not drink alcohol before you go to bed, and that has a huge impact on the quality of your sleep. Caffeine would have similar effects.
Ask your family to be considered, and do not disturb you during your sleep.
Thirdly, there are some medicines.
You and your doctor might consider taking, like Provigil, for example.
This medicine needs to be taken an hour before the shift starts, and it helps to normalise the body natural clock, as well as fighting one of the two main symptoms of this sleep disorder – excessive sleepiness, so you
WILL STAY AWAKE AT WORK!
There are also some other medicine available, so it is a good idea to have a chat with your doctor.
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