Graveyard Shift Landing People One Foot in the Grave

When 11pm comes around, many people are watching the nightly news and getting ready to get a good night's sleep. But for some people, this is when they are just starting their eight or more hour work day. In this day and age, many businesses feel as though things have to be running around the clock in order to succeed. 2.1% of the workforce is on this vampire-like shift. But what about those people that are working the night shift? Are they really succeeding?

Many health hazards have come into light for those working overnight. Scientists feel that working the graveyard shift interrupts our body's circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is almost like a biological clock on a 24 hour cycle that deals with our physiological processes. This also includes telling our body when its time to sleep and when it's time to be awake. Having a balance to this is very important because when we are not following that schedule, we become very weak from lack of sleep and becoming weak makes us more vulnerable to diseases.

Diseases so traumatic such as cancer, recently the World Health Organization have found that the men and woman working overnight have shown higher rates of breast and prostate cancer.

Sleep deficiency is the greatest challenge that graveyard shift workers face. Many of them have families that they have to care for, so instead of getting off of work at 7am or 8am and going home to sleep, they are making breakfast and getting the kids off to school. Some people even have day jobs along with the night jobs to go to.

Ever notice how after working the nightshift, if you do go home and go to sleep, you normally sleep more than the allotted 8 hours or even though you are so tired, you can't sleep because that sunlight blasting through your window is psychologically telling you that your not supposed to be sleeping? Research has indicated that day sleep is lighter and less restful than night sleep that would explain the reasoning of why you either can't sleep or sleep longer. By sleeping longer, your body is trying to get the rest it needs and is not getting on a nightly basis.