Shift workers 'in state of jet lag’

Press, 11 July 1983, Page 12

Shift workers 'in state of jet lag’

NZPA Sydney A full study of shift work has shown shift workers to be in a permanent state of “jet lag” which they cannot adjust to even after a year. The study indicated that disruptions to the body’s time mechanism led to the high incidence of sleep disorders, depression, respiratory problems, and digestive complaints found among shift workers. The findings were presented in a management studies seminar at Macquarie University. They resulted from three years intensive research at Latrobe University’s brain behaviour research unit into rotating and permanent shift work. A seminar organiser, Dr Bob Spillane, said that the study provided hard evidence that could be used in the very political areas of

workers’ compensation and “job redesign.” All previous studies carried out in Australia had been in the form of questionnaires, not scientific studies measuring the hormone levels of shift workers. At the seminar Professor George Singer, of La Trobe University, said that even people who had been doing shift work for 25 years had high adrenalin levels during the day, making it difficult for them to sleep, and low levels at night so that they were fighting to stay awake. Consequently, shift workers had far greater problems with stomach ulcers, diarrhoea, constipation, nervous disorders, and lung ailments and were generally less healthy than day workers. Dr Spillane, Professor Singer, and Dr Meredith Wallace, of La Trobe University, all argued that money was inadequate com-

pensation for the problems associated with shift work, and warned of the dangers in “buying stress off.” According to Dr Spillane, drinking coffee all night or taking stimulant drugs increased the physiological cost of shift work because these practices pushed the body in the opposite direction to the one it was taking.

He called for the establishment of shift work clinics like those working in Scandinavia to educate workers on how to minimise damage to their health. Professor Singer said that shift workers often had enormous personal problems because their work put them outside the normal social structure. The study surveyed 800 shift workers and 300 day workers of the Victorian Electricity Commission, and provided a detailed analysis of hormonal levels in 100 permanent shift workers.