Older Adults With Night Shift Must Practice Good Sleep for Better Performance

A study in Occupational and Environmental Medicine yields insights that could help older adults who work night shifts sleep better, reports Bel Marra Health . The researchers learned that older people who work nights may feel more alert and sleep longer if they stay up longer after getting off work, then stay in bed for eight hours and wake up near the beginning of their shift. The authors enrolled two groups of nine adults, ranging in age from mid-50s to early 60s, who spent eight-hour simulated work shifts in a lab but slept at home. Subjects were required to "work" from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., then took a day off and worked four-night shifts from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. They could sleep when they wanted after day shifts, but after night shifts one cohort had to stay out of bed until at least 1 p.m. then stay in bed for eight hours, while the other group only had to postpone sleep until 1 p.m. Both groups spent about eight hours in bed and asleep before the study and during day shifts, but during night shifts, those told to stay in bed for eight hours got as much sleep as before — while those with no instructions spent less and less time every day in bed during night shifts. Participants told to sleep only in the afternoon and stay in bed for eight hours averaged two hours extra sleep each day than the comparison group.