Long-term Shift Work Drains Brain Power

A new study found those who do shift work or work odd hours for a long-term period lose brain power.

According to CNN , researchers in France and the United Kingdom studied more than 3,000 people employed and retired in southern France for 10 years. Some of the workers never did shift-work and others had done it for years.

The researchers discovered that shift work impaired cognition and the impairment became worse with time. Workers scored lower in memory tests, processing speed, and overall brain power. Notably, those who worked odd hours for more than a decade aged their brains by 6.5 years.

Fortunately, a switch back to working regular hours can reverse the cognitive decline. However, it takes at least five years for the brain to gain its previous power back.

No definitive correlation was drawn for working odd hours and impairing cognition because the study was observational. The researchers suggested that disrupting a human’s body clock could cause physiological stressors which could harm the brain.

Humans are meant to sleep at night with our bodies’ circadian rhythms. Disrupting the sleep cycle has been known to cause ulcers, obesity, heart disease, and breast cancer. Now scientists can point to intellectual loss as another con of working abnormal hours.

Another theory the researchers posed is that sleeping during the day may cause vitamin D deficiency. A lack of vitamin D can make people more susceptible to a metabolic disorder.

The study was published online on Monday in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal.

Many researchers before have studied the effects and consequences of shift work. What makes this study different, according to the researchers, is that it’s the first one to delve into reversing the cognitive harm of long-term shift work. At least there’s a positive note.

Long-term Shift Work Drains Brain Power