%0 Journal Article
%T Prioritizing sleep for healthy work schedules
%A Masaya Takahashi
%J Journal of Physiological Anthropology
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1880-6805-31-6
%X Advances in sleep research have produced a considerable amount of data regarding the role of sleep in all areas of life, including the workforce. Working individuals account for approximately half of the population in most countries, which emphasizes the significance of sleep for this particular group. At a worker level, inadequate sleep leads to a wide range of health disorders [1]. Also, sleep problems are associated with short- and long-term sickness leave [2] and further interfere with return to work following these absences [3,4]. In the long run, poor sleep causes work disability [4] and early retirement [5]. Furthermore, disrupted sleep dose-dependently increases the risk of all-cause mortality in working men [6]. In reference to cause-specific mortality, severely disturbed sleep may be associated with a greater suicide risk, even after accounting for depressive symptoms [6]. This finding is highly relevant to the situations in Japan, with over 30,000 people committing suicide every year since 1998 [7]. Sleep problems are also a safety concern because they are associated with occupational injuries, as shown in both cross-sectional and prospective studies [8,9].We believe it is important to address sleep-related occupational hazards from not only an individual perspective, but from a workplace perspective. At the workplace level, recent findings highlight the economic burden caused by employees with insufficient and/or poor sleep [10-12]. Although many differences exist among studies, sleep-related costs in the workforce are within a similar monetary range of approximately a few thousand dollars per person per year [10-12]. Importantly, due to the significant costs and the large number of workers affected, employers experience substantial economic damage from sleep-related problems.Despite the clear disadvantages as listed above, the value of sleep has been somehow neglected. The decline in interest among occupational safety and health experts may occur becaus
%K Alertness
%K napping
%K productivity
%K recovery
%K sleep
%U http://www.jphysiolanthropol.com/content/31/1/6