Work stress could be consuming the sleep of most middle-aged working people, undermining their health, according to a new study.
Nearly 70% of a small group of people aged 50 to 66 experienced persistent sleep problems, even though they had no history of sleep disorders, researchers reported on July 28 in the journal Scientific Reports.
Even more concerning, more than 9 out of 10 participants (92%) reached the clinical threshold for a sleep disorder at least once during the one-year study, according to the researchers.
“I was genuinely surprised by the magnitude of the sleep problems we discovered in this otherwise undiagnosed group,” said lead researcher Athanasios Tsanas in a press release. He is a professor of digital health and data science at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
“Our analysis clearly shows that many of these sleep and well-being problems are work-related, and that overall well-being depends to a large extent on a sustained work-life balance,” said Tsanas.
For the study, researchers asked 45 middle-aged workers to complete regular wellness and workplace assessments over the course of a year, in addition to wearing devices to capture their physical activity and sleep.
In total, the team collected more than 1,900 reports on well-being and the workplace, and more than 5,200 days of wearable sensor data.
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The results showed that 90% of participants experienced sleep disturbances, although the majority averaged between 6.5 and 8 hours of sleep per night.
Altered sleep, rather than a lack of sleep, likely explained why many people reported feeling poorly rested in their self-reports, according to the researchers.
Work experiences have consistently emerged as one of the most important factors that disrupt sleep, the analysis revealed.
Thus, work-related stress could be a key factor through which work affects both a person’s sleep and overall well-being, according to the researchers.
“Although we knew from previous evidence that sleep can influence work, and that work can influence sleep, we were surprised by the extent to which our non-clinical population was having difficulty sleeping,” said researcher Belinda Steffan, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh Business School, in a press release.
“Our study highlights that sleep is a health and well-being issue in the workplace,” said Steffan. “Organizations and employers must consider the impact of work-related sleep problems on their workforce, focusing on workers over 50 in the context of our study, but relevant to all age groups.”
