Source: BBC

There have been a steady stream of studies over recent years that suggests long-term night-working is extremely bad for your health. It’s a sobering thought for those who have to work at night, writes Sarah Montague.

I’ve been getting up in the dead of night to go to work for years. It’s the price for presenting the Today programme – and one I’m happy to pay.

But I’ve always wondered whether there is a longer term cost. Could my early rising, when my body is screaming at me to go back to sleep, be doing more serious and permanent damage than can be reversed by a good night’s sleep?

I’m just one of 3.5 million people in the UK who do shift work. Many are on much longer hours and work through the night.

It’s not just night workers. Fifty years ago adults typically had eight hours sleep. Now the average is 6.5 hours.

Too many of us think of sleep as an indulgence. When my alarm clock goes off at 3.25am, I always promise myself I’ll catch up later. After all, I’m only tired.

But sleep is as essential as breathing and eating. It’s when our brains process what we’ve done during the day and lay down memories. And when our bodies carry out some basic maintenance.

We’ve now learned that even when night-workers get plenty of sleep, it’s at the wrong time.
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It had always been assumed that our body clock would adapt to the demands of working at night, but as one of Britain’s leading sleep experts, Prof Russell Foster, from Oxford University, says “the really extraordinary finding across a whole range of different studies, is that you don’t adapt”.

And that means those working at night for long periods are more likely to get a range of serious diseases from type 2 diabetes to coronary heart disease and cancer.

Some scientists believe that anyone arriving at work at 4am – as I do – has an ability to process information that is as bad as if they’d had a few whiskies or beers.

It’s not as much fun as being drunk but it is a struggle to think straight. That’s when the amount we have to read and write in the two hours before we go on air has a welcome sobering effect.

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