Night shifts lead to health problems

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Doing the night shift throws the body "into chaos" and could cause long-term damage, warn researchers.

Shift work has been linked to higher rates of type 2 diabetes, heart attacks and cancer.

Now scientists at the Sleep Research Centre in Surrey have uncovered the disruption shift work causes at the deepest molecular level.

Experts said the scale, speed and severity of damage caused by being awake at night was a surprise.

The human body has its own natural rhythm or body clock tuned to sleep at night and be active during the day.

It has profound effects on the body, altering everything from hormones and body temperature to athletic ability, mood and brain function.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, followed 22 people as their body was shifted from a normal pattern to that of a night-shift worker.

Blood tests showed that normally 6% of genes - the instructions contained in DNA - were precisely timed to be more or less active at specific times of the day.

Once the volunteers were working through the night, that genetic fine-tuning was lost.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25812422 for more

I've got a terrible sleeping pattern due to shift work that sometimes has me awake at 6 in the morning and sometimes has me working until ten at night. It's left me seemingly continuously feeling lethargic and exhausted, it seems, which contributes to a slight depression I feel mentally at times. I'm certain other comrades have similar experiences.

[Sea]

I hate to say I told you so, but:

A steel manufacturer who employs children in night-labour remarked: “It seems but natural that boys who work at night cannot sleep and get proper rest by day, but will be running about.” (l.c., Fourth Report, 63, p. xiii.) On the importance of sunlight for the maintenance and growth of the body, a physician writes: “Light also acts upon the tissues of the body directly in hardening them and supporting their elasticity. The muscles of animals, when they are deprived of a proper amount of light, become soft and inelastic, the nervous power loses its tone from defective stimulation, and the elaboration of all growth seems to be perverted.... In the case of children, constant access to plenty of light during the day, and to the direct rays of the sun for a part of it,is most essential to health. Light assists in the elaboration of good plastic blood, and hardens the fibre after it has been laid down. It also acts as a stimulus upon the organs of sight, and by this means brings about more activity in the various cerebral functions.” Dr. W. Strange, Senior Physician of the Worcester General Hospital, from whose work on “Health” (1864) this passage is taken, writes in a letter to Mr. White, one of the commissioners: “I have had opportunities formerly, when in Lancashire, of observing the effects of nightwork upon children, and I have no hesitation in saying, contrary to what some employers were fond of asserting, those children who were subjected to it soon suffered in their health.” (l.c., 284., p. 55.) That such a question should furnish the material of serious controversy, shows plainly how capitalist production acts on the brain-functions of capitalists and their retainers. Well, actually Marx told you so.

edit: not you marxschmarx, you little stinker you~

[Jimmie Higgins]

Diabeties and Cancer and Heart Disease!? Fuck, I've been on steady night-shifts for two years + now. No health care either.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Well, I don't like to be up during the day. So I guess I am doomed without night-shift anyway.

[Comrade Jacob]

I'm not surprised, humans aren't nocturnal...although you could make an exception for me.

[Thirsty Crow]

Well, I don't like to be up during the day. So I guess I am doomed without night-shift anyway.Yeah, not that I don't like to be up during the day as you, but I simply don't do that very often out of... I don't know what :lol:

Hate it when what seemed like my mother's prejudice turns out as probably grounded in fact. Maybe I ought to reevaluate my way of life? Maybe.

As for the political implications of said research, it would be interesting to see a demand for rigorous "overtime" compensation for night shifts. Not that I think it is realistic to expect that. It's just that this illustrates elegantly the potential relationship between scientific research and politics, in the sense of the former providing clear evidential basis for the latter, or better yet, for the legitimation of class demands (since partial, economic, demands within capitalism always need to account for the structural necessity of legitimation which is indeed based on the very capitalist nature of a society).

[Tenka]

My mother works the night-shift and she is morbidly obese which puts her doubly at risk for all those terrible things. I am scared.

[guy123]

marxists .org/ archive/lenin /works/1902/draft/02feb07.htm#v06zz99h-027
Not for nothing it was mentioned in the bolsheviks program.
To protect the working class and to raise its fighting capacity, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party demands:
1) that the working day be limited to eight hours for all wage-workers;
2) that a weekly rest period of not less than thirty-six consecutive hours for wage-workers of both sexes employed in all branches of the national economy be established by law;
3) that all overtime be prohibited;
4) that night-work (from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) in all branches of the national economy be prohibited, with the exception of those branches in which it is essential for technical reasons;
5) that employers be forbidden to employ children under the age of fifteen;
6) that female labour be forbidden in industries specifically injurious to the health of women;
7) that the law establish employers’ civil liability for workers’ complete or partial disability caused by accidents or by harmful working conditions; that the worker should not be required to prove his employer’s responsibility for disability;
8) that payment of wages in kind be prohibited ;
9) that state pensions be paid to aged workers, who have become incapacitated;
10) that the number of factory inspectors be increased; that female inspectors be appointed in industries .in which female labour predominates; that observance of the factory laws be supervised by representatives elected by the workers and paid by the state; piece rates and rejection of work done should also be supervised by elected representatives of the workers;
11) that local self-government bodies, in co-operation with elected representatives of the workers, supervise sanitary conditions in living quarters provided for workers by employers, and also see to the observance of rules operating in such living quarters and the terms on which they are leased, with the object of protecting the wage-workers from employers’ interference in their lives and activities as private persons and citizens;
12) that a properly organised and comprehensive system of health inspection be instituted to supervise working conditions at all enterprises employing wage-labour;
13) that the Factory Inspectorate’s activities be extended to artisan, home, and handicraft industries, and to state- owned enterprises;
14) that any breach of the labour protection laws be punishable by law;
15) that employers be forbidden to make any deductions from wages, on any grounds or for any purpose whatsoever (fines, rejections, etc.);
16) that factory courts be set up in all branches of the national economy, with equal representation of workers and employers.

[Jimmie Higgins]

marxists .org/ archive/lenin /works/1902/draft/02feb07.htm#v06zz99h-027
Not for nothing it was mentioned in the bolsheviks program.

Also bakers during the Paris Commune organized demanded from the Commune an end to night-work.

Wow, I'm really feeling like I'm part of a much older tradition of worker's grievances now when I complain about my shifts.

[ChrisK]

I don't work the traditional night shift. I generally work from 5pm to 1-3am (depending on the day of the week and how busy we are) and then wake up at 7 to go to school.

[Manic Impressive]

The article seems a little sensationalist to me. Rule 1 of the British press; EVERYTHING CAUSES CANCER. Be afraid, be very afraid.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Have you ever tried modafinil? I hear that it gets prescribed sometimes for work-related sleep disorders. It has a very low potential for addiction and isn't amphetamine-based. It can potentially improve cognitive functioning without haphazardly flooding "reward centers" like certain other stimulant drugs do.

Anyway, I just mention it because I've always been curious about it. If I ever get down to Mexico again I'll probably buy some just to check it out, it's sold over-the-counter there.

I too work long hours at my job which sometimes disturb sleep patterns. It's nothing compared to what my parents used to talk about "back in the day", though, in the fishing industry in the 80's, when no one slept (or, rather, they'd take 1 hour long naps every few days) No wonder so many of the fishermen spent considerable amounts of money on coke and speed back then :rolleyes:

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

I'd actually prefer night shift. It's torture for me to wake up early.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'd actually prefer night shift. It's torture for me to wake up early.
Yeah but when you do it regularly, then 9pm is waking "early". It was fine for me for about 6 months, then at a year I began to notice less motivation for things - it could just be that I need to motivate myself to do errands and whatnot in the evenings after I wake up and sometimes I just don't want to go to a coalition meeting - or even out to dinner with friends - first thing after waking up. Gives me lots of revleft time tho.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Yeah but when you do it regularly, then 9pm is waking "early". It was fine for me for about 6 months, then at a year I began to notice less motivation for things - it could just be that I need to motivate myself to do errands and whatnot in the evenings after I wake up and sometimes I just don't want to go to a coalition meeting - or even out to dinner with friends - first thing after waking up. Gives me lots of revleft time tho.
Not necesarly. People work differently from each other, I'm naturally more inclined to go to bed late and wake up late (I read using computers before sleeping is one of the causes due to high brain activity). Since I'm NEET I've been changing sleep cycles, today I'm going to bed at 19:00, next week I'll be at 2:00 and in two weeks at 6:00 Am probably.
Though I can keep the same schedule if I force myself to, but I'd still rather mantain a 6:00 - 15:00 than 22:00 - 7:00. it's easier for me, dunno why. I also work better at night, much more creative and energetic.
9 hours of sleep, because 8 is not enough for me :/ I'd say lack of exercise is one of the causes.

I'm so screwed up.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I think it's a problem when it's mandated by an employer on whom a person depends to acquire the resources needed simply for survival or just a decent lifestyle. It's a problem when being sleep-deprived becomes a prerequisite for survival. Short of that, take all your "humans aren't nocturnal" stuff and shove it. :P Maybe some people here support a revolutionary cadre of some description imposing strict curfew laws, but no revolution I could support would force people to sleep and wake up in such a regimented way!

Seriously, I get that staying up late is probably a romanticized aspect of the "entrepreneurial" culture as well (picture the great genius who has an epiphany in the middle of the night while the "lazy masses" are sleeping), but night is the time it's usually quiet around here in my case, so I actually tend to concentrate better and do more stuff/read more then. A lot of my friends are the same way, and even my family is lately, so the habit just gets reinforced. Maybe that will change but for now I'm a night-owl, damn it. People were not designed to get up at 6 A.M.!

Point being, just to clarify, it should be a matter of personal choice whether or not one is a "night owl", rather than something mandated by private owners of the means of production.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

i've struggled with insomnia for the last four or so years and I think it's finally beginning to have an effect on my mental and physical health. I did just go along with it for a while (i'm a student and partial to online gaming/late night film+etcetera viewing sessions so it didn't seem such a bother) but particularly over the last year I have felt ill more frequently and with more severity than before after spending most of my life in extremely robust health, so yeah, this is unfortunately not a super-huge surprise to me.

[RedWaves]

That's the cost of working a human being down to the bone like a slave all in the name of profits.