Irritability, stress, low concentration… How does it affect working night shifts?

Working at night has different implications for people, from health effects to social repercussions. The negative impact can be stronger depending on the number of days in which they are covered night shifts and the age of the workers, for example.

According to the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), around 3.1 million people They work night shifts, 916,508 people exclusively at night and 2.2 million who rotate shifts.

The Federal Labor Law (LFT) establishes that night work is the workday between 8 at night and 6 in the morning and can have a maximum duration of seven continuous hours.

The first affectation caused by night shifts is a mismatch in the circadian cyclethat is, the cycle that human beings follow during the day and how we react to natural processes such as light or darkness.

“The maintenance functions that the body gives to the body at night no longer occur. For example, immune activity is regulated at night; Hormonal activity, memory fixation are also regulated at night. This circadian imbalance causes your physiological and behavioral reactions they are no longer aligned and are no longer as appropriate for the day. For example, instead of secreting melatonin at night, you do it during the day”, explains Jorge Mérida, creative partner of the Advisory Network for Wellbeing.

This alteration in the natural cycle can be the prelude to conditions such as diabetes or cardiovascular, metabolic and immunological diseases, says the specialist.

Specialists in Neurophysiology such as Eduard Estivill and Apolinar Rodríguez have confirmed that workers with night shifts lose five years of life for every fifteen years of working in these conditions and they have a 40% greater chance of suffering from neuropsychological, digestive and cardiovascular disorders.

Among other consequences of the alteration of the circadian cycle, one that has been little publicized is the link with breast cancer, exposes Jorge Gutiérrez Siles, senior consultant of the firm Kaysa. “In countries like Denmark, breast cancer is recognized as an occupational disease and they have even compensated nurses and stewardesses who developed this disease and had no other risk factor, except that they worked once a week on night shifts for 20 years.”

The International Labor Organization (ILO) through recommendation 178 suggests that night shifts should not exceed eight hours and “in no case should two consecutive full-time shifts be carried out” or, failing that, guarantee a break of at least 11 hours between shifts. turns.

In our country there are professionals who work recurrently at night. Jorge Gutiérrez affirms that a paradoxical example is that of the medical residents“they are not workers, they have a special regime, but their working hours should be regulated, because they have a long-term effect on health.”

Other negative effects that night shifts can have are reflected in the tendency to “be more irritable, with negative thoughts, without the ability to contemplate many alternatives for solving problems”, indicates Jorge Mérida. This is derived from sleep deprivationwhich can also affect people’s performance by negatively impacting cognitive functions such as concentration, alertness, decision-making, among others.

But the repercussions, Jorge Gutiérrez points out, can also be seen reflected in a productivity loss for companies by increasing levels of absenteeism among workers who develop illnesses as a result of sleep deprivation.

In addition to this, various authors agree that there is a relationship between occupational accidents and sleep deprivation, something characteristic among workers with night shifts. For example, nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union or Three Mile Island in the United States occurred at dawn as a result of human error.

How much night work is tolerable?

There is no parameter to know how many night shifts could represent a risk, emphasizes Jorge Mérida, but the reality is that with a single shift of this type there is an alteration of the circadian cycle and sleep deprivation. “As it is a circumstance that is not biologically contemplated in our human nature, night work It will always represent a risk factor, even if it is only one night.”

Jorge Gutiérrez agrees on this, detailing that although studies are needed to analyze how many days can represent a risk, the fact that melatonin is only generated at night represents an affectation every time there is a wakefulness for work.

However, there are factors that can increase the risk to people who work at night, such as age and history of pathologies, adds Jorge Mérida.

Although night shifts represent a risk to the health of workers, Jorge Gutiérrez states that in our country there is no special compensation for people who work at night. “Whoever works like this is not out of choice, but out of necessity, and the legislation does not establish an overpayment for this type of worker, despite the fact that their health is compromised.”

In this regard, the ILO establishes in its recommendation that “night work should generally give rise to appropriate financial compensation. Such compensation should be in addition to the remuneration paid for identical work carried out during the day, with the same demands.