\nRoutinely working outside of a normal, daytime shift may cause cognitive and memory impairment, according to a new study.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nThe new research builds on a bank of analysis that\u2019s beginning to reveal the ways in which shift work, particularly rotating and night shift work, impacts the brain and body over time.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s important to know this is a multifactorial issue. There\u2019s not just one system that is being impacted,\u201d said Durdana Khan, PhD, a doctoral scholar at York University in Canada, who led the new research. \u201cStress, sleep deprivation, and melatonin disruption all work on the brain.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Getty Images \/ South_agency<\/p>\n <\/span> <\/span> <\/p>\n \nIt\u2019s estimated that around one-quarter of adults in the United States, or nearly 40 million people, are or have been shift workers\u2014either working nights or rotating between night and day shifts.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nPrevious studies have linked long-term shift work to a slew of health problems including coronary artery disease and atypical heart rhythms, obesity, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and even a later onset of menopause.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nTo better understand how an abnormal work schedule impacts the brain, Khan and her team analyzed data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, including nearly 48,000 middle-aged and older adults ages 45 to 85 years old.\n<\/p>\n \nThey evaluated whether each person had ever worked shift work; if so, whether they worked shifts during their longest job, and whether they were currently working shift work.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \nThey found that about one-fifth of people in the study had worked shift work at some point. People who worked the night shift, either at their current job or the job they held for the longest amount of time, were more likely to have overall cognitive impairment.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nCompared to people who consistently work during the day, working the night shift during a person\u2019s longest job was associated with memory impairment.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nThose who worked rotating shift work\u2014sometimes working day shifts and sometimes working nights\u2014were more likely to have impaired executive function, a mental process that allows people to plan, focus attention, remember, and multitask.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nAccording to Beth Malow, MD, a professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University and Director of the Vanderbilt Sleep Division, the primary way shift work impacts the brain is by disrupting sleep patterns by requiring people to be awake and working some nights, and asleep others.\n<\/p>\n \nThis misalignment to the body\u2019s biological rhythms causes the brain to release different chemicals, including stress hormones, which can affect memory over time.\n<\/p>\n \nHumans have a 24-hour biological clock that regulates a number of physiological processes including sleep patterns, eating and digesting, blood pressure, body temperature, and how hormones are regulated.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s less about the duration of the shift and more about the circadian misalignment,\u201d Malow told Health<\/em>.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Postponing Bedtime By Just 34 Minutes Could Increase Your Risk of High Blood Pressure<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span> <\/p>\n \nAccording to Malow, people need to get a good night\u2019s sleep to think clearly and to allow the brain to reset and get rid of toxic proteins that can build up in the organ and affect memory.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHowever, the impact of shift work goes beyond sleep to cause circadian misalignment,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \nAccording to Khan: \u201cShift workers are working when our bodies need rest. In scientific language, it\u2019s called desynchronization of our body, there is an imbalance, and a lot of things are happening when there is imbalance in our body.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe brain responds to darkness\u2014the sun going down\u2014by preparing the body for sleep. This includes releasing melatonin, a hormone that promotes sleep.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen people work at night, they\u2019re often exposed to light when their bodies would otherwise be winding down for bed. This disrupts the natural circadian rhythms.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter repeated exposures, these disruptions are harmful to the body and have a direct effect on brain cells, leading to neurodegeneration, said Khan.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen the natural sleep schedule is disrupted, it also causes the brain to release inflammatory proteins at abnormal levels. While the body naturally produces some amount of these inflammatory proteins, sleep disruption can prompt the brain to produce too many, \u201cWhich has neurotoxic effects on brain cells, which can impair brain function,\u201d Khan said.\n<\/p>\n \nCortisol is another way in which disrupted sleep patterns during shift work can have toxic effects on the brain.\n<\/p>\n \nLack of sleep naturally causes an influx in cortisol, the body\u2019s stress hormone. If someone\u2019s job is stressful on top of being shift work, for example, nursing, this can compound the negative impact cortisol has on the brain.\n<\/p>\n <\/span> <\/p>\n \nAlthough people who work at night do appear to have more cognitive impairment than people who work during the day, Khan explained that having an irregular schedule that shifts between working during the day and working at night likely has the most profound impact on cognitive function.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThis rotating shift work is more disruptive to your body because you\u2019re not giving your body a chance to adjust,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you are doing regular night shifts, your body can adjust.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nFor many, shift work is an unavoidable part of their job. Malow emphasizes the importance of getting as much sleep as possible, even when a person\u2019s schedule requires them to do so sporadically or during the day.\n<\/p>\n \nIf at all possible, she said it\u2019s important to stick to a sleep schedule, that is, sleeping around the same time every day. This may be more doable for people who only work night shifts, rather than rotating shift workers.\n<\/p>\n \nAll shift workers should also focus on other pillars of health\u2014eating a healthy diet and getting enough physical activity\u2014to help mitigate some of the cognitive and physiological impacts of having an erratic sleep schedule.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNot everyone can sleep during the day,\u201d Khan said. \u201cBut after your shift work, there should be a resting period where you can relax.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Even Slight Changes In Your Sleep Schedule Could Affect Your Gut Health<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New research found that shift work\u2014like working nights\u2014may negatively impact someone\u2019s cognition and memory. This is largely due to the misalignment of the body\u2019s internal clock and circadian disruptions that occur with irregular sleep schedules. Experts recommend people stick to as close of a regular sleep schedule as possible, whether that is during the day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410,1275],"tags":[116,1276],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Female](\"https:\/\/www.health.com\/thmb\/vzP2I7LYKjcSRnSk6IKy1SrE8lE=\/1500x0\/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()\/GettyImages-1411826708-bca3134ccfa44484909f48de1fa0cfbc.jpg\")
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\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Misaligning the Body\u2019s Internal Clock <\/span> <\/h2>\n
Circadian Disruptions Directly Impact Brain Cells <\/span> <\/h2>\n
How to Guard the Brain Amidst Unusual Schedules <\/span> <\/h2>\n