When it comes to youngsters who are burdened or pressured to take care of their families or their nature of job alone tends to be having work apart from the normal working hours, the concept of shift work comes here. There are also few advantages of doing shift work like, having time for other activities, women can take care of their children etc. There are also certain group of people who tend to work during night shifts so that they get some better pay.But the fact is that they are easily exposed to some health disorders doing shift jobs.
Negotiating all the above fact there are also some experts who throw some hidden truths in front of us about the shift jobs. They prefer to say that doing night shifts or some other timings of works will not only change the daily routine of a person but also prove to create some health related problems and also disturbs to maintain a proper work-life balance among them and causes disorders. Let me take through the various health hazards that may occur for people doing shift based jobs and what are the significant ways in which we can reduce those risks and avoid typical health issues.
SHIFT WORK IN USA:
The country has usual working hours right from 6 AM in the morning till 6 PM in the evening, terming as the regular work hours. Any job that is performed out of this time is considered to be a shift job in the country. They classify the shift works into several categories depending upon the nature of the job or the timings stipulated by the organization.
A survey was conducted few years back which revealed that nearly 15-20% of the working citizens in the country are mostly doing shift jobs and work apart from the regular working hours. Recent reports by a famous medical institute states that nearly the same amount of people who work in shifts have reported the complaint of sleeping disorders in California. The only good feeling comes when we hear that the number of Americans doing shift jobs in the recent years have been reduced and their slots are being fulled by the people of the other countries and continents.
Only service based industries in the country have been working round the clock and it is essential for them to employ people and keep their machines all day and night. Even though all these people have risks to certain diseases to a certain extent, there are some particular group of shift workers who have some high risks against some serious infections.
EARLY RESEARCHES:
There has been previous studies based on which reports have clearly shown that there are disorders of exposing themselves to certain types of diseases like diabetes for people doing shifts. The reason being that the hormones that are necessary to control the sugar level in the blood are not generated which ultimately causes a rise in the sugar level. The people who are always working on rotational basis shifts has high risk of acquiring the disease.
The reports have also pointed out particularly about the power of our mind and thinking capacity starts to get reduced when we work on shift jobs or rotational shifts. This was made clear when results showed a group of people secured minimal cut-offs, keeping the criteria in the mind that they are working in shifts in part-time with their main focus is studying colleges. These college students tend to work during nights either due to their family situation or there may some personal pocket money needs for them.
FINDINGS :
The intellectual disorders found among the people who work in the shifts, based on the recent results may also have some significant measures to be taken care of, not only for the people who work in shifts but for all the people who even think of doing shift jobs. The severeness of the health hazard may be said as directly proportional to the amount of time they spend in doing shift jobs.
There are high risks of getting affected with cardiac problems for people who work for more than 4 years of rotational shifts at night. The females from the medicine environment are highly carrying the risk of this problem. To make things worse, people who continue to work for more than 10 years of night shift job, be it rotational or regular should be highly aware of formation of cancer cells in the lungs, which is a major disorder to their health.
From the above points it can be made clear that people who do shift jobs are not properly maintaining the work-life balance and also have the risk of resting themselves at bed little less than the usual hours and also slowly become a passive person in their life.
CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS:
There are few common problems which are normally faced by the night shift job goers, and too much sleepiness is one among them says a survey. There has also been surveys made the health organization of the world, which devised a methodology to proportionate the people who go to night shift jobs as carcinogen since they inhibit so much toxic effects on ourselves and the body follows some natural rhythms called as circadian rhythms, which is normally calculated for about 24 hours.
The common parameters sometimes get affected by these rhythms which may not give you sleep, other symptoms when they are under the control of SCN(supracharismatic nuclei) which forms to be a major component in our mind. These nuclei holds the responsibly for our body changes that occur frequently in the rhythm in 24 hours calling it a circadian circle.
One common example to make you clearly understand is the traveling in an airplane. Many of us would have this experience of traveling from our place to other nations across different time-zones. The circadian clock(our Body) initially wont get adjusted to the place where we have reached in a sudden but, it will still respond to the practices followed at the place where we departed. You will feel that you aren’t able to adapt to the new environment so quickly.
This is the feeling each and every people who do shift jobs experience daily in their life.Some other issues related to the above mentioned fact are food practices and food consumption timings which may commonly differ from one location to another which also has certain effects in their digestive system and its tracts.
NIGHT SHIFT INCREASES EXPOSURE TO DISEASES:
A famous professor from a reputed medical institute has certainly added that working in night shift jobs gives the individual to get more exposed to diseases than others because of various other factors that contribute to his health and lifestyle. The ultimate point that comes from the expert is that the people who work in night shift jobs will have no co-ordination with the common people and he starts to lose his relationship with his own society.
There may be some arguments made that they are capable of adjusting themselves with other people and the environment but the internal factors may surely trap them to get exposed to certain infectious diseases. In addition, there have been more entertainment options in the form of various gadgets which also suck their time and keep them occupied all time which automatically affects the brain and hormones.
Another study made by an expert was to find the instrument that operates the rhythm cycle was hper2, initially a protein based content in our body shows great signs of restrictions against some severe diseases like cancer. It has also been revealed that there may be some disruptions to the sexual hormones due to these activities.
These also resulted in increased sugar levels in blood causing the rate of lipids to increase, and affect the cardiac system in our body.This is a major problem because of the reason of high stress inducted in the mind of the people and some habits like smoking also proves to be the cause to some extent.
Hence the habits of the people who go for night shift jobs have to correlate themselves with the behavioral and lifestyle practices of the other people which shows a vast difference in their health habits and shows how near they are by getting affected by severe chronic problems
POINTS TO BE FOLLOWED TO AVOID RISKS:
There has been many suggestions all over the world for avoiding health disorders by the people who go to night shift jobs on a rotational basis.The first and foremost thing to get adapted to the new shift schedule is to split up your sleeping hours into small portions during the last week of the current shift and getting awake earlier than usual. This will surely help your cause.
Using spectacles at sunlight will reduce the damages of their eyes during the daytime if they are regular night shift workers. Even if there is any holiday or even in weekends try to sleep at the same time as at the time of working days to avoid tiredness and maintain the work-life balance.
Try getting practiced to new time zones without changing or decreasing the number of hours you usually sleep. These are some of the best practices that can be followed to avoid disorders for people who regularly do shift jobs.