Are Night Shifts Killing Me
Are Night Shifts Killing Me
Are Night Shifts Killing Me
- BBC News
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In today's Magazine
One rower, two cats, 900
miles
Searching for Mrs
Livingstone
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But sleep is as essential as breathing and eating. It's when our brains
process what we've done during the day and lay down memories. And
when our bodies carry out some basic maintenance.
We've now learned that even when night-workers get plenty of sleep,
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When we say those first few words of the programme at 6am, I often
think of those whose slumber we are breaking. Why is it so much
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easier if you set your alarm at 6am than 4am? Why are those extra two
hours of night-time sleep so much more valuable than snatched day
time hours?
The answer lies in a few thousand cells in a primitive part of the brain the location of our main body clock or suprachiasmatic nucleus.
It controls everything about when we go to
sleep, when we wake up, when our liver
produces enzymes to digest food. And it
changes our heart rate, increasing it in the
morning when we wake up and ensuring it
declines in the evening.
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quickly.
A massive study in the US has been following 75,000 female nurses
who work shifts over the past 22 years. It has shown that one in ten of
those who have worked rotating shifts for six years will die early.
It's not just the harm we're doing to ourselves - in some jobs we put
others at risk.
I spoke to someone who spends his nights as a cleaner. Instead of
sleeping when he gets home, he says that, after a shower, he goes on
to another job driving big trucks around the country. He does that six
days a week, on only three hours sleep.
There are rules in place to limit the hours truck drivers can work. What
they don't appear to monitor is what a driver is doing in his supposed
"rest" time.
There are no specific health and safety laws
on shift working in the UK but employers do
have a duty of care. And some companies
and governments are starting to take the
issue more seriously - not least because of
the threat of legal action. The Danish
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The evidence of the price our bodies are paying for that trade-off is
piling up. But so too is our understanding of how the body clock works.
And with that comes the possibility that we can manipulate it - turn the
hands forward or back.
The Wellcome Trust has given Prof Russell Foster and his team at
Oxford University 3m to investigate a relatively new discovery -
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We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night - but it
could be good for you. A growing body of evidence from both science
and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.
The myth of the eight hour sleep
Which five things ruin a good night's sleep?
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