Working Nights

Shift Work and Divorce – Does the Work Schedule Really Make a Difference?

Divorce.  It’s not a fun topic for anyone. 

By now most of us have read that we’re better off if we’re married.  According to the Center for Disease Control, married people tend to have lower mortality rates, exhibit less risky behavior, are more likely to monitor their health, comply with necessary medical routines, have sex more often and experience more satisfaction with their sexual lives, save more and earn more.  On a national level, the Census Bureau reports that a shrinking share of Americans are married – only 52% of males and 48% of females were married in 2008. The proportion of Americans who are currently married has been decreasing for decades and is lower than it has been in at least half a century.  The median duration of a marriage in 2008 was 18 years. In 2008, 9% of men were divorced and 12% of women were. 

So why don’t we stick with our marriages?  And, is it true that maintaining a marriage is more difficult for shift workers?

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The Connection Between Safety and Teamwork – It’s all about Communication and Taking Workers’ Individual Differences into Account!

Starting as young children, we’re taught about the importance of teamwork.  For example, we might have learned to work together to bring the groceries in from the car – maybe one person brought the bags into the house, another took them into the kitchen, another unpacked them, and someone else put the food away in the cabinets and fridge.  It felt fun working together at something; the experience was certainly more enjoyable than anyone doing the whole job on their own.  And, we could see that this four person exercise accomplished the task in a quarter of the time it would take one person to do the whole thing (if you were lucky enough to have four people to pitch in and help!).

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.”  

As adults we’re told that teamwork is critical to achieving success in our jobs too.  But, is this really the case?

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November is National Heartburn Month! Is this Something to Celebrate?

Do you feel bloated?  Is your stomach is churning day and night?  To alleviate your heartburn and acid indigestion, do you regularly pop antacid pills?  If your answers are yes, you’re not alone.  People who work shifts often suffer from gastrointestinal (GI) disease.  In fact, up to 75% of night workers have G.I. problems – and peptic ulcers are up to 5 times more frequent.  Nearly 40% of shift workers report taking antacids several times a month.[i]  According to the National Heartburn Alliance (NHBA), over 25 million Americans suffer from heartburn on a daily basis and most of them attribute it to the foods they eat.    

So, if you’re one of the 25 million, or your best buddy or spouse is, what can you do to get help? 

Read this article…

Plan Ahead for Ghosts and Goblins When Working Shift Work!

It’s almost Halloween; time for ghosts and goblins, and disappointed kids whose parents have to work. Or maybe you don’t have kids, or yours are grown and out of the house, but you were invited to a Halloween party. Halloween falls on Saturday night this year – a great night for a party! If you didn’t plan ahead to get the night off, it’s probably too late. But, you can still find opportunities to have fun. Here are some great ideas!
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Working Night’s President Featured on WBZ 1030 Call-in Program – Friday, October 23, 2009 at Midnight

Working Night’s President, Betsy Connolly, discussed the positives and challenges of working shift work  on The Jordan Rich Show starting at midnight. Callers commented on their strategies of managing shift work lifestyles and asked questions.  Ms. Connolly also spoke about how shift workers and their families have used the Working Nights calendars to better manage work/life balance when working shifts for 25 years.

Listen to the tape of the program by clicking here.  You’ll be brought to our press release and news section.  Search for the blue and red WBZ logo shown above for the posting.

Shift Worker Liquid Intake Extremely Important!

Most shift workers admit they don’t have the best understanding of nutrition and that they find it challenging to follow good nutritional habits. It makes sense that sticking with good nutritional meals can be difficult when working shifts – most shift workers admit they eat what they can find with the least effort – which is often food from vending machines, 24/7 convenience stores, or fast food restaurants. What doesn’t make sense is that shift workers don’t have better knowledge about their own nutrition. Certainly with education, just as with everyone, shift workers’ nutritional awareness can be exponentially increased.

We often read about nutrition and relate it immediately to the food we eat. We’ve written in other posts about the importance of eating healthy food – see “Be Careful What you Eat When Working Shift Work.” However, liquid sustenance is a significant part of our daily intake as well. When we’re awake, we drink water, juice, soda, coffee, tea, alcoholic beverages, and some of us drink liquid nutritional supplements too. What’s important about the liquids we put in our body? The essential information to know is about hydration and dehydration, calories and caloric content, and how where you live, the job you perform and your overall activity level impacts your body’s need for liquids.
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Working Nights is on the Radio and the Internet!

We are now on WBZ Radio 1030!

Working Nights on Drowsy Driving

Here’s one of our new Working Nights internet cartoons!

Working Nights Spanish Calendar Provides Critical Health and Safety Know-How for Hispanic Population

Press Release Issued Today to Announce the Working Nights Calendar for Hispanic Shift Workers:

BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Circadian Age, Inc. – ‘Working Nights’ – a company dedicated to helping shift workers and their families adjust to their unique lifestyles, is announcing a new Spanish calendar. The 2010 Working Nights Spanish Calendar offers organizations with Hispanic workers the opportunity to show added concern about the health and safety of this group of employees, by providing them with educational material in their own language, to use at home.

“Hispanic shift workers face the same circadian rhythm and biological clock challenges that all 24/7 employees do” says Betsy Connolly, President of Circadian Age. “But often, language barriers make an already difficult situation worse. Spanish speaking workers are often less knowledgeable about chronic health conditions and safety prevention at work, which may result in more accidents and errors and increased health care costs.”

For the full release read here.

A Pitch to President Obama – How About a Shift Workers Day?

2010 Working Nights Pocket Calendar 3.5 x 7

In moments of great stress and loss, our immediate tendency is to point the finger and blame those we see as having had the responsibility for predicting, and thereby preventing, the crisis. Most recently, experts responsible for issuing emergency warning alerts have been criticized for their slow response to an 8.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami followed by even more quakes earlier this week in the Samoa Islands region (150 deaths). This was followed by Wednesday’s 7.6 magnitude earthquake in the southern Sumatra region of Indonesia which has reportedly killed at least 700 (and many are still missing – 30,000 homes destroyed). Now emergency workers and aid groups are scrambling 24/7 to respond to the havoc and devastation resulting from these disasters.

It takes you back to 911, Katrina, or the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed 150,000 people. People working 24/7, working nights, evenings, and weekends for multiple days in a row! How do we get through these emotionally draining and often physically taxing periods?
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Knowledge of Brain Research will Separate Successful Operations from Others

Research about the brain is leading to amazing results. New discoveries can help us understand ways that the brain may restrict shift workers from maximizing their potential – and – give us more ideas about what can be done about it. Topics ranging from how training provides our brains with greater processing speed and an enhanced ability to multi-task to how our brains control our reaction to invasion of our personal space are covered in this post. Whether its figuring out how people from different cultures can get along better to why getting more stage four sleep is important to learning from training, each of these new brain related studies are important for human resources, safety, and health professionals in any shift work environment to be aware of. And, they are critical for shift workers themselves to understand, as well.
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Yale Murder Highlights Workplace Violence Risks

According to The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), two million Americans are subject to workplace violence each year. Defined as a threat of violence or an actual violent action taken against workers, some recent cases have heightened concerns about workplace violence. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data indicates that fatal occupational injuries due to assaults and violent acts were actually down 8% between 2007 and 2008 (864 in 2007 to 794 in 2008). But, during the same period, office suicides reached an all time high since the data has been captured by the BLS (251 in 2008 compared to 196 in 2007) – a 28% increase.

In January 2009, a survey of risk security practitioners by Security Director News found that despite all the recent focus on terrorism, 49% reported that workplace violence topped their security concerns.

Which workplaces are the most violent and how can we make all of our workplaces more safe?
Read this article…

Working Nights Featured in Corporate Wellness Magazine’s September Issue

Health care reform is on everyone’s mind. Corporate Wellness Magazine, written for employers, unions, government agencies, consultants and insurance companies, has two health related articles by Working Nights featured in this months magazine. They include:

The Cost of Pharmaceutical Products used by Shift Workers
In 2007 the total U.S. health care bill came to $2.3 trillion—more than we spent that year on food. The United States spent approximately 16 percent of its 2006 gross domestic product on healthcare, up from eight percent in 1975. This article looks at pharmaceutical products and how much we spend on ailments affecting shift workers.

Lowering Stress and Anxiety for Shift Workers
When faced with the anxiety that sometimes accompanies working shift work, many people turn to tobacco, drugs (both pharmaceutical and illegal ones) and alcohol as coping mechanisms. While these substances may bring some calm in the short term, they tend to heighten stress and anxiety over the long term. This article includes valuable tips to help shift workers better manage work/life balance.

Hope you enjoy these featured articles!

©2009 Circadian Age, Inc. – ‘Working Nights”

Be Careful When and What You Eat, When Working Shift Work – No Greasy Fries and Burgers Anymore! Sorry!

Our bodies circadian rhythms regulate when we should eat, sleep, and be active. However, when we work shift work we don’t allow our bodies to adhere to these regulations, especially when we are working nights. We run around working, when we should be sleeping and inactive, and we eat at night when our bodies are normally shut down and not focused on digestion. We all know it doesn’t help us to maintain our weight when we eat junk food at night while sitting in front of the television. But what causes the problem? Is it the calories in the junk food? Would it make a difference if we chose to nibble on carrots and celery instead? Or is it because we’re eating late at night? A recent study in the journal Obesity, has found that when we eat may be more of a driver of weight gain than what we eat. This obviously has significant impact for shift workers.
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Is Moonlighting Poised to Return, and if so, What Should Employers and Employees Do About it?

As the economy turns, it’s likely that more people will start taking second jobs. Added employment security and the need to double up on paychecks to make up for losses during the recession will drive people in this direction. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7.6 million Americans held multiple jobs during the first five months of this year, or 5% of all employees, about the same as last year. During earlier economic boom periods, moonlighting has increased. For example, at the end of 1989 over 7.2 million Americans worked more than one job, an increase of 25% since 1985. And, by 1997, 8.5% worked more than one job, almost another 20% increase. Now, during more difficult financial times, perhaps it’s not surprising that the numbers are down a bit.

But, the downward trend seems poised for a quick uptick as the economy improves and employers supplement their workforce with part timers rather than bulk up on full-time employees.
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Safety at Work for an Aging Population of Workers

Everywhere we turn there are articles about more seniors in the workforce. This is not a new trend, but the pattern has clearly stepped up as a result of the current recession. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1977 and 2007, total employment in the US increased by 59%. Amazingly, employment of workers 65 and over had already increased 101% during this time! For men over 65, the 1977 to 2007 increase was 75%, but for women it was 147%. What does this mean for safety at work? We have a lot to do!
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