Workers’ brain power could be affected by long-term rotating shift work. Humans are wired to sleep at night by their circadian rhythm, a 24-hour cycle that brings about physical, mental and behavioral changes in the body. The circadian rhythm affects sleep cycles, hormone releases, body temperature and various processes. Besides the intellectual impact, disrupting it has been associated with health problems including ulcers, heart disease and breast cancer. Those who did work rotating shifts had lower scores on memory, processing speed and brain power than those who worked regular office hours.Even people who spent at least 50 days in a single year working any type of irregular work schedule – including regular shifts that prevented them from going to sleep before midnight or that forced them to wake up before 5 a.m. – suffered a significant mental toll. Tests revealed that these workers experienced the equivalent of 4.3 years of age-related cognitive decline, on average, even if their shift work happened years ago.Previous studies have found that work schedules that are out of sync with the body’s natural circadian rhythm can harm mental function. For instance, airline crews that experienced frequent jet lag and didn’t get enough time to recover got poor results on tests of their cognitive abilities. Industrial workers assigned to odd shifts did worse on memory tests compared with their counterparts who only worked days. And nurses who sometimes worked nights got lower marks on tests of general cognition.
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