We're almost over the hump for another work week. If you're already feeling sick of work, it may be more than the mid-week blues. A Charlottesville doctor diagnoses work sleep disorder. He says it can affect anyone whose work schedule is more than the traditional nine to five.
Ruth Butterworth, a neonatal intensive care nurse on the nightshift at the University of Virginia, packs her punch to stay awake at work. She said, "Coffee for most people, Tab for me."
She drinks the caffeinated soda so much that she's even special ordered it. Butterworth stated, "I used to get two cases a week."
Butterworth always has to be alert and on her A-game. She said, "I get up about 3:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon, get ready to go to work like you would in the morning."
She's worked overnights for 28 years now and never experienced health problems until recently. Butterworth picked up a second nightshift at a Richmond-area hospital to help her family get through the tough economy.
The two jobs and 60-hour work weeks started to wear her down. "Very bad headaches making me sick to my stomach," stated Butterworth. "Having a harder time getting up and getting ready to go to work."
She became irritable and struggled to sleep during the day, until a doctor's diagnosis. Butterworth stated, "I have sleep work disorder."
Doctor Chris Winter at Martha Jefferson's Sleep Center says as many as a quarter of shift workers in central Virginia have shift work sleep disorder.
"Work can make you sick," said Winter. "You're not getting part of the cascade of hormones and growth factors that make you recover."
That makes your body more susceptible to sickness. But Dr. Winter says most shift workers suffer through it undiagnosed, until they're older - like Butterworth who just turned 50.
Winter stated, "As time passes, it's very natural for our bodies to become less adaptive to that kind of shift work. And that's when you see problems arise."
A National Sleep Foundation survey finds 61 percent of shift workers suffer from insomnia compared to 47 percent of nine-to-fivers.
And they're nearly twice as likely to experience excessive daytime sleepiness. Dr. Winter says you don't have to work the graveyard shift to get sick. He said, "Anything outside that more typical nine to five kind of job hours can be easily set up for someone to have shift work disorder."
Winter encourages employers to stress the importance of sleep to their employees' overall health. Your boss allowing a 30-minute nap break can be enough to re-energize tired workers. He stated, "You need to go into it with your eyes open and understanding there is no substitute for sleep, but we can make you safer."
A short-acting sleeping aid is helping Butterworth get to bed during the day, and she can take another pill to give her some pep if she feels tired at work. "You can get so much better sleep and feel so much better instead of being tired at work all the time," Butterworth said.
Dr. Winter says he's seeing more patients experiencing shift work sleep disorder after they've taken on second or third jobs to pay the bills in this economy. He adds that there's no substitute for uninterrupted sleep, for those of us who don't work from nine to five.
