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Shift work may be bad for your brain. Shift workers often struggle to adjust their sleep schedule to the constant changes of working day and night hours. New research suggests it’s not just their sleep that suffers. Researchers found that “working antisocial hours can prematurely age the brain and dull intellectual ability. A decade of shifts aged the brain by more than six years. While there was some recovery after people stopped working antisocial shifts, it took five years to return to normal.” The brain age was calculated by looking at how well individuals performed on tests at a variety of ages. According to one author, “It was quite a substantial decline in brain function and it is likely that people undertaking complex cognitive tasks make more mistakes and slip-ups when tired. Maybe one in 100 makes a mistake with a very large consequence, but it’s hard to say how big a difference it would make in day-to-day life. I would not do night shifts if I could possibly help it, but they are a necessary evil that society cannot do without.”
