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Not sleeping? Maybe it’s due to when you go to work…


Alarm Clock
Alarm Clock

If you’re not getting enough sleep at night, perhaps it’s due to when you go to work each day.

According to a study by the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane,  YOUR WORK HOURS CAN DETERMINE HOW MUCH SLEEP YOU GET EACH NIGHT.

What the study found was that if your work day begins between the hours of 9:00a and 2:00p, then chances are you had a solid 8 hours of sleep the night before.

Those who worked the night shift, with work hours that began between 8:00p and 12:00a had about 4.5 hours of sleep. 

Drawing a conclusion between these two sets of data, the research showed that the ideal time for a shift to start was 9:00a, and the worst time was 11:00p.  The reasoning behind this was that the former group was the least tired throughout the workday, while the latter was most tired.

The study also showed that it was more beneficial to have a late-night shift start after midnight than it was to have the shift start at 11:00p.  This was because those workers who started work after midnight were most likely to have slept immediately before their shift began.

Getting an adequate amount of sleep has shown to have other beneficial health benefits as well.  For example, SLEEPING LESS THAN FIVE HOURS A NIGHT CAN LEAD TO OBESITY, according to research done at Case Western Reserve University based on 68,000 women.

Those who slept less than 5 hours a night gained more weight over time when compared to those who slept seven hours a night.  This sleep deprevation led to an increase in hunger, turning those who slept less to eat more food than they normally would had they slept more. 

Those who didn’t get enough sleep would also eat more foods that were not nutritionally-sound, which also contributes to the added weight gain.  The study concludes that this is why many people don’t lose weight if they’re not sleeping well.

But it’s not just preventing weight gain that an adequate amount of sleep can help with.  GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP CAN ALSO HELP MITIGATE MIGRAINE HEADACHES.   Research at Missouri State University showed that when rats were deprived of REM sleep that their bodies produced certain proteins that triggered the nervous system to react, causing pain.

But that doesn’t mean that more sleep means no migraines.  Doctors were quick to point out that getting too much sleep can also cause migraines.  The key, they said, was to establish a strict sleep schedule – going to bed and waking up at the same time every day of the week.