Sleep & Your Job

We all want to get a good night's sleep, but many of us don't. It could be because of our jobs, or at least the time of day we work.

The current recommendations are to get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep most nights. Getting less than that can lead to heart and other health problems. But even getting too much sleep, more than 9 hours on average, can increase your chance of heart disease.

Most of us, though, don't have to worry about getting too much sleep. As a matter of fact, a new study, just published by the CDC found that 30% of us get fewer than 6 hours of sleep per night.

They also found that our jobs seem to be part of the reason why. Those working in manufacturing type jobs got less sleep than other workers. Those working night shifts had an even bigger problem putting in the right amount of shut eye. Nearly half of night shift workers had trouble sleeping enough. And depending on where you worked your night shifts, the problem could be even worse. Nearly 70% of warehouse and transportation workers and over half of health care workers didn't get enough sleep on a regular basis. The same was true for those working more than one job or more than 40 hours a week.

So, although you can't do much about the hows and wheres you need to work, realizing you might not be getting enough sleep can hopefully help you get more shut eye in the future.