Sleep deprivation leads to cognitive impairment. It degrades cognitive processing, affecting everything from memory to reflexes. With less sleep, reaction time slows. This means decisions are made less quickly and accurately, increasing the odds of misjudging one’s own abilities and taking unwise risks. In the workplace, excessive sleepiness can greatly increase the likelihood of a workplace accident, which can result in injury and even death. Sleep deprivation also has a significant impact on other aspects of job performance, including productivity, task management, and meeting goals.

Issues arising in the workplace due to sleep deprivation include:

• Lost time - Sleep-deprived workers are twice as likely to miss work as their soundly-sleeping peers.

• Change in mood - Without sufficient sleep, people can become irritable, easily frustrated, anxious, and even depressed. These changes can lead to poor communication or team difficulties.

• Decreased performance - Sleep-deprived employees have more difficulty performing in the workplace. They also have decreased concentration compared to their peers. This can impact both individual and group performance.

• Financial costs - In 2015, it is estimated that sleep deprivation-related losses cost the United States between 1.56 to 2.28 percent of the country’s GDP.

Sleep and Workplace Accidents

In many industries, a lack of sleep is a signifiant safety issue, with long work hours paired with poor sleep quality contributing to a higher risk of workplace injury and death.

• Overly sleepy employees are 70% more likely to be involved in workplace accidents than colleagues who are not sleep-deprived.

• Sleep-deprived workers who drive as a part of their job are particularly in danger of drowsy driving, which can also have serious consequences. Drivers who get six hours of sleep or less are 33% more likely to have an accident on the road, compared to those who get seven or eight hours of sleep. Driving while sleep-deprived has the same or worse impact as driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05%.

• Healthcare workers are also at risk of drowsiness impacting their work, especially because they tend to work long shifts or work overnight. A study of 100 nurses revealed that cognitive performance was significantly impaired in night shift workers demonstrating, for instance, that nurses working the night shift made 32% more mathematical errors than nurses working the day shift. This was attributed to poor sleep quality and decreased alertness.

• In a Swedish study of over 50,000 workers, those who self-reported disturbed sleep were twice as likely to die in an accident related to the workplace.

Infamous workplace accidents, where excessive sleepiness or sleep deprivation were direct or indirectly responsible include:

• Air India Express Flight 812 - In 2010, an Air India Boeing 737 crashed in southern India, killing 158 people on board. According to the official inquiry, the pilot had been asleep for nearly three hours of the flight and woke disoriented just before the landing at 6:30 a.m. local time.

• Chernobyl Nuclear Plant - The 1986 catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear plant began at 1:23 a.m. because of human error. It was later found that the operators responsible were working on too little sleep.

• Exxon Valdez Oil Spill - Excessive work hours and sleep deprivation were major contributing factors to the grounding of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker.

• Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion - Because of a lack of sleep and sleep-deprived shift work, poor judgments were made when launching the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986. According to reports, crucial managers had been working since 1 a.m. the day of the explosion, and they slept less than two hours the previous night.

• Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant Incident - In 1979, the worst commercial nuclear plant incident in the history of the United States occurred at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant in Pennsylvania. The incident occurred when shift workers working between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m failed to recognise a serious change that nearly resulted in the meltdown of the nuclear reactor later that day.

Shift Work Disorder

Shift work disorder, aka shift work sleep disorder, is a condition that primarily affects people who work night, early morning, and rotating shifts for their jobs such as nurses, firemen, hospitality workers etc. Insomnia, excessive sleepiness while awake, and recurring sleep loss are the defining symptoms of shift work disorder. The average person with shift work disorder loses one to four hours of sleep per night. Shift work disorder is categorised as a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, because of the misalignment between the body and the circadian rhythms that regulate the sleep-wake cycle.

If left untreated, shift work disorder can lead to serious complications, including:

• Mood Problems - Shift work disorder can cause people to feel impatient, irritable, and unable to cope with problems or conflicts. People with shift work disorder are at higher risk of depression.

• Poor Work Performance - People with shift work disorder often struggle to concentrate, pay attention, and remember things. This can translate to reduced performance at work and added costs for employers.

• Higher Accident Risk - Since shift work disorder decreases alertness and reaction time, it puts workers at higher risk of committing errors or being involved in an accident. In addition to workplace accidents, these individuals are at greater risk of getting into a vehicular accident during their commute due to drowsy driving. A significant number of drowsy driving collisions occur between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m.

• Added Health Problems - A good night’s sleep is needed to restore the body and maintain good immune health. Shift work sleep disorder and subsequent sleep loss can worsen underlying health problems, including gastrointestinal, metabolic, reproductive, and cardiovascular issues.

• Low Testosterone - In some people, shift work can affect their testosterone levels which can present with fatigue, low energy, and low libido.

• Substance Abuse - Many people with sleep problems self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. This can lead to substance abuse or dependency if problems persist

Sources: The Sleep Foundation | Wikipedia | National Library of Medicine