The number of working Americans who get less than seven hours of sleep a night is on the rise.
Researchers from Ball State in Muncie, Indiana, and the University of Toledo in Ohio analyzed data on 150,000 working adults from 2010 to 2018 and found the prevalence of adults who experienced short sleep has increased from nearly 31% in 2010 to almost 36% in 2018, according to a Sept. 13 article on MedicalXpress.
Published online Sept. 5 in the Journal of Community Health, the study found that professions with the highest levels of poor sleep in 2018 included police and military (50%), health care (45%), transport and material moving (41%), and production occupations (41%).
“We see the workplace is changing as Americans work longer hours, and there is greater access and use of technology and electronic devices, which tend to keep people up at night,” said study author Jagdish Khubchandani. “Add to this the progressive escalation in workplace stress in the United States, and the rising prevalence of multiple chronic conditions could be related to short sleep duration in working American adults.”
Employers should allow employees adequate time for sleep, he said.
“We all suffer when our bus and truck drivers, doctors and nurses are sleep deprived,” Khubchandani said.
