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• Posted January 10, 2025

Job Strain Can Worsen Sleep Longterm, Data Suggests

Ever woke in the night with your thoughts racing about work problems, co-worker disputes, or heavy career decisions?

Well, it’s more common than you think.

Job stress is robbing U.S. workers of the sleep they need, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 8 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Work strain increases risk of sleep disturbances significantly, researchers found.

The results indicate that companies could do more to help workers get their rest, which in turn will improve their productivity, said senior researcher Dr. Jian Li, a professor of work and health at UCLA.

“Strategies such as redesigning workloads and promoting worker autonomy could play an important role in improving sleep health and workers’ well-being,” Li said.

The new study analyzed data from more than 1,700 workers participating in a study of midlife people in the United States. These folks were followed for about nine years on average.

Sleep disturbances were assessed based on how often people had trouble falling asleep, waking in the night, waking too early in the morning, and feeling unrested during the day.

“Sleep disturbances have been a major public health concern, with recent statistics indicating that approximately 1 in 7 adults experienced difficulty falling asleep, and 1 in 6 adults had trouble staying asleep in the United States,” researchers said in background notes.

Researchers analyzed the effect of work stress on sleep using six different means of measuring job strain.

Every single measure significantly linked job strain to higher risk of sleep disturbances, results show.

“Our results imply the critical need for early workplace interventions aimed at reducing job strain,” the researchers concluded.

More information

Baylor College of Medicine has more on the effects of stress on sleep.

SOURCE: American Journal of Industrial Medicine, news release, Jan. 8, 2025