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Protecting eyes from computer screen
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Insomnia & shift work
Computer and Health
By Dr Trisha Macnair
Disruption of sleep is a huge problem for people who work shifts, especially shifts on short rotation such as yours.
Shift work throws out your body clock
The fatigue and loss of sleep that you can experience with night work are a result of putting your body clock out of sync. It's very similar to jet lag.
Humans don't feel tired because they have been awake and active for several hours. In fact, if someone stays up all night, they feel increasingly fatigued until a peak at 5am - and then fatigue decreases until the next evening.
Tiredness is a normal body rhythm. When you work shifts, your body carries on with the same rhythm as though you should still be sleeping at night and awake in the day, despite what you are trying to make it do.
It takes the body several days to adjust to a new time structure, by which time you have gone off night shifts and back to days (and so are trying to make your body clock change yet again)!
Alcohol and medicines make the problem worse
Using alcohol or medicines to help you sleep simply makes the problems worse. Firstly, they don't help your body clock to adjust to the new time pattern. Secondly, the sleep they induce is of a different quality to natural sleep and many find that it is not as refreshing. Thirdly, taking medication long term is not a good idea.
The exception to this may be melatonin, a natural hormone which is not licensed for use in the UK but which is widely used in the USA. Melatonin plays some part in sleep control and the body clock. However, exactly what it does - and how it is best used - has still not been clearly shown.
Get your body clock back into line
There is not yet a clear solution to getting good sleep while on shift work, but the best way to deal with it is to do things which help the body clock to re-align. These include:
- Adapting to your new time frame as quickly as possible by timing meals and other activities to match the new 'day.'
- Some people claim that if you eat the right sort of foods that can help you to adjust. The general recommendation is a high protein/low carbohydrate breakfast and lunch, a high carbohydrate/low protein dinner, and drinks containing caffeine in the afternoon; but there are also several 'jet lag' diets doing the rounds.
- Exercise can help sort out body rhythms. You should start your new 'day' with some sort of gentle exercise. This may mean a brisk jog at 10pm when most people are tucking up for the night!
- Recent studies have shown that a short period of sleep in the middle of a night shift can help maintain work performance later in the shift.
Follow sleep hygiene rules
You must also try to ensure that the sleep you do get is good quality sleep. Make sure that your bedroom is peaceful, not too hot, and is well ventilated.
See for general tips on insomnia (not being able to sleep).
Talk to your employers and your doctor
Let your employers know that you are having problems adjusting to short shifts - they may be able to help, as may your doctor.
There are several good sites on sleep on the net. Try sleepnet.com (shift) to find out what has helped other people working shifts. And good luck!
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Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
I'm seeing more and more people in my surgery suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, and one of the things it appears to be related to, is using computer keyboards.
In the wrist, there is a tunnel formed by the strong tissue through which the tendons of the hand and the median nerve pass. It's a tight squeeze, so anything that reduces the space in the tunnel, such as fluid or inflammation of the tendon coatings, exerts pressure on this nerve. It's believed that repetitive overuse of the hand tendons, as with any tendon or muscle, causes them to become inflamed. Hence why keyboard use or other repetitive activities can be responsible.
When the nerve is compressed, people suffer discomfort, numbness, pins and needles, and sometimes, pain in the thumb, index, middle, and side of the ring finger, next to the middle finger. This is where the median nerve endings are distributed. Tingling often wakes sufferers up at night; when vigorously shaking the hands and arms is what brings relief. Men will also describe dropping things, or being clumsy with simple, but fiddly tasks, such as fitting a plug, for example.
Eye Problems :: Regular eye checks, Tips to reduce eye strain, First aid for eyes
Most people give hardly a thought to the amazing work our eyes do to enable us to see, until things start to go wrong. It's often at work (or school) that people begin to realise they have a problem. That doesn't mean that work is harmful to your eyes (although it can be) but that work or school is where we most need to see well.
We may be stressed, tired, trying to read tiny print or study tiny diagrams, and using our brains to think out problems fast, relying on all our senses. And so often these days, work also means sitting staring at a computer screen or VDU which puts extra demands on our eyes.
Regular Eye Checks.
So looking after your eyes at work is vital. But many people don't even have regular sight tests. It is estimated that as many as one in three working people have visual defects (like short or long sightedness) which have never even been diagnosed or have not been properly corrected. These problems may come to light when you do visually demanding work.
Make sure you have your eyes tested at least once a year or more often if you have symptoms. You may be able to demand that your employer provides regular eye tests especially if you work at a VDU - check Health & Safety regulations.
Symptoms suggesting eye problems are: Problems seeing or reading, Blurred vision, Headaches, Dizziness, Pain in the eyes, Watery eyes, Dry eyes
Headaches at Work :: Triggers of a headache at work, Preventing headaches, Making your work environment comfortable and stress-free
Headaches are such a common health problem that its not surprising that they often occur while people are at work. But there may be very specific reasons, related to the job or the working environment, why some people particularly suffer from headaches while they are trying to do their job.
Headaches can be hugely disruptive to work. More than 18 million working days are lost each year because of migraines, for example. This particularly debilitating type of headache can cause intense symptoms lasting up to 3 days and which are often so severe that concentration and co-ordination becomes very difficult and it is simply impossible to carry on working. In severe cases headaches can interfere with promotion and career prospects. Employers may worry that the person simply isn't up to the stresses of the job while those people with frequent headaches fear that they are letting down their colleagues because they insist on regular breaks or other conditions to avoid triggering a headache.
What triggers headaches at work? All types of headaches, especially tension or stress related headaches and migraine, are common in the workplace, probably because many similar trigger factors may be involved (see Box below). In some types of headache, especially migraine, a number of trigger factors may add up until a threshold is passed and a headache results.
Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) :: What is RSI? Protect yourself. Identifying RSI
As many of us spend more and more time in front of computers, the chances of developing repetitive strain injury (RSI) increase. For some people, the pain of RSI is so great that it prevents them from working at all. However, it doesn't develop overnight, so by always remembering that prevention is better than a cure, problems can often be avoided in the first place.
Occupational overuse syndrome, work-related upper limb injury, and isometric contraction myopathy, are all phrases used to describe what is more commonly known as RSI.
Overuse of the muscles of the hands, wrists, arms, or shoulders on a repeated, and usually, daily basis, causes injury to these muscles. This results in inflammation that is never really given a chance to recover, since these everyday harmful activities invariably continue.
Sick Building Syndrome (SBS)
Sick building syndrome (SBS) is the term used to describe a situation in which occupants of a building experience symptoms of ill-health that seem to be linked to spending time in a building - but where no specific cause can be identified.
Those experiencing symptoms of ill health may be in a particular part of the building or the problem may be spread throughout.
What are the symptoms of SBS? Some of the symptoms associated with sbs are: headaches, eye, nose or throat irritation, skin irritation, coughs, dizziness, nausea - and fatigue. The symptoms rapidly improve after leaving the building.
