Cognitive Functioning of Women Gets Hampered by Working Late Nights

Hitting the bed early and getting a good night’s sleep is important for the overall health. Sleep deprivations can have an adverse effect on our biological cycle. But, the raising trend in the employment culture is night shifts or rotational shifts. Though we think that working late at nights can hamper both men’s and women’s health equally, a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that women’s brain may get affected strongly than men.

The findings revealed that the circadian effects — the 24-hour biological cycle — on brain performance was significantly stronger in women than in men such that they were more cognitively impaired after the end of doing night shifts.

"We show for the first time that challenging the circadian clock affects the performance of men and women differently. Our research findings are significant in view of shift work-related cognitive deficits and changes in mood," said one of the researchers, Nayantara Santhi.

The desynchronized sleep-wake cycle from the brain's 24-hour clock lead to impairment in mental skills such as attention, motor control and working memory.

The team compared the brain functions of 16 male and 18 female participants, who were kept on 28-hour a day cycle in a controlled environment without natural light dark cycles. This effectively desynchronized the sleep-wake cycle from the brain's 24-hour clock, similar to jet lag or a shiftwork scenario.

The study raises significant implications for female night shift workers such as nurses, security guards and police officers.

Source-IANS