Is Your Job Making You Sleep Deprived?

April 5 2018 - Sleep is the most vital component to having both an enjoyable and a fruitful day. A Sleep Council study revealed that the industry you work in can greatly affect how you sleep.

As it turns out, those who work in Human Resources sleep the best, with far more than one in ten (12.9%) claiming that they can get more than nine hours of sleep most nights. The study also discovered that those who work in marketing, transport and engineering are the most likely to resort to using sleep remedies, with 23.1% of marketing employees saying they drink alcohol or use over-the-counter methods to help them to drift off. Over half (57%) of Human Resource professionals claim that they have never turned to these remedies.

Workplace stress appears to be the biggest factor for losing out on sleep, with almost half (47.2%) of British workers citing this as a reason for lying awake at night. For those working in education and retail, the numbers are even higher, with 54.3% of teachers citing workplace stress as keeping them awake at night, along with 52% of those working in retail.

The Sleep Council study also revealed that 14.2% of us check their work emails right before going to bed. About a fifth of computing and telecommunications workers (20.3%) and architects (19%) admit to checking their work emails last thing at night. HR professionals just inch out the national average at 14.3%.

Whatever your profession, it is essential to be well rested, so you need to optimise your conditions. Whilst companies like Google are installing sleeping pods to ensure their workers are getting enough sleep, blinds and shutters specialist Thomas Sanderson have listed a few simple changes you can make at home to get the best night's sleep possible.

Blocking out light and noise from the street, installing window blinds in your bedroom can reduce disruptions to your sleep. This would be highly beneficial for the 17.6% of people who said that external noises are the biggest disruptor of their sleep.

With more than 11% of people saying that sunlight is the reason that they could not sleep well; certain blinds can also remotely regulate the lighting in your room. This way they replicate a sunrise which wakes you up naturally, or they keep the daylight out so you can sleep uninterrupted after returning from a night shift.

Shutting down your electronics before going to bed will help to prevent the build-up of neurotoxins, which disrupt the brain's metabolism. Looking at a screen late at night causes your brain to switch to 'work mode', instead of winding down.

Not getting a consistent amount of sleep each night could lead to serious health issue like insomnia, so it's essential to try and get the most restful night's sleep possible, whatever your profession.

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