Sugary foods and drinks may provide a sudden burst of energy, but they also cause the dreaded sugar crash.

It works well for short periods but must not be consumed at very high doses. Light sends a signal to the body’s circadian rhythms and is known to increase alertness in people.Ĭoffee and tea contain caffeine, a brain-changing chemical that helps people stay alert. The nap breaks are similar to scheduled meal breaks and will provide much-needed rest. Research suggests that nurses who work 12-hour shifts or longer should be allowed to take one-hour naps. Nurses, hospital workers and management staff can take certain steps to improve working conditions of medical professionals who work long hours or at night, including:Īllowing nurses to take naps during night shift Strategies to Manage Long Hours and Night Shifts In a study published in 2004 by Rogers et al, it was shown that a nurse is three times more likely to make an error while working in shifts that extend to 12 and a half hours or more, compared to working shifts that lasted just 8 and a half hours. They could, for example, commit errors and inaccuracies in the administration of drugs, suffer from syringe needle injuries and other medical tools, or make mistakes in the use of medical equipment. These symptoms can pose some serious threats to nurses and their ability to perform their job accurately and correctly. People also may suffer from impaired cognitive flexibility and communication skills. Not getting enough rest could lead to symptoms such as slower reaction time, impaired learning ability, slower cognitive ability, moodiness and sudden drowsiness. Many health problems can be directly attributed to lack of rest and sleep. Many people involved in global markets log on outside normal office hours.Problems Associated with Long Hours and the Night Shift

One in five US employees works shifts that fall at least partly outside the hours of 6 am to 6 pm, and 1 in 15 works late shifts exclusively. It is not just security guards and emergency workers who have to endure this perma-lag. Imagine jet lag as a way of life and you get the idea. “That’s why shift workers find it difficult to get enough sleep – during the day, the biological clock is promoting wakefulness,” says Christopher Morris, a researcher in sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School. It influences the rhythms of our autonomic system and spurs our endocrine system to secrete hormones associated with everything from sleepiness to stress – and it is extremely hard to ignore. Our body’s master clock – a collection of about 50,000 neurons in the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus – responds to external cues, such as light, and coordinates the cellular clocks in our organs and muscles. There are even those who make a habit of it: Thomas Edison reputedly worked without sleep for days on end when in the throes of invention, as did his arch-rival, Nikola Tesla.īut for most of us, pushing on past bedtime takes real effort. Most of us have pulled an all-nighter at one time or another. SOMETIMES, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Read more: “ The night: The nocturnal journey of body and mind“ It’s not just emergency workers who endure perma-lag (Image: Ken Schles/Gallery Stock)

Night shift