Is working permanent night shift bad for your health ?

viktory

I do think it depends on the individual. My Mum worked permanent nights and it suited her perfectly. My husband, however, was driven slowly mad by it (not literally, of course!).

dickydonkin

patricia50 wrote: »

I did permanant nights for over 12 years and it does your health no good. Its much harder to sleep in the day and your quality of sleep is not as good. I would compare the way you feel as like having jetlag a lot of the time. No matter how you try your sleep pattern gets shot to pieces. I did 4 nights on 4 off. When I started my health was fine, when I left had high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. I'm not saying nights caused this but I think the way it affects your body contributed to it.

The jetlag comparison is spot on -I never thought of it like that but yes - it is very similar.

Only once did I have to do permanent night shift and that was for only 5 continuous weeks.

I actually lost weight, couldn't eat much and just felt absolutely shattered for most of the time.

I suspect it affects people in different ways - but I just could not do it on a permanent basis - certainly not for 12 years!

Dreamscometrue

This is quite interesting;

http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/on-air-are-employers-killing-you-by-making-you-work-nights/

and this;

http://www.acep.org/content.aspx?id=30560

ceridwen

With everything I have read about night-shift work - I am only too glad that the type of work I trained for originally was only ever standard daytime hours.

Things have changed nowadays - but I'm thankful to be old enough to be able to say "...not for me they havent" and stick to normal workhours...whew...

Also helps to be old enough to be able to just say (to myself only...) that "If I become unemployed - I'll stay that way, rather than look at jobs with abnormal workhours - as it won't be long till I'm retired anyway."

EDIT: I do think there is something profoundly wrong with a society/employers that expects ANYONE to work antisocial hours unnecessarily. We all know that there are certain jobs where there is no option but to do so - eg medical, public transport workers, police - but there is simply no excuse for society/employers to expect people like shop assistants, office workers, factory workers, etc to work at night - as there is no need for this.