Work times and recovery from work - Recovery from demanding work hours

7 important questions on Work times and recovery from work - Recovery from demanding work hours

Two bodily stress systems:

  • Sympathetic adrenal medullary system (SAM):
    • the brain stimulates the adrenal glands (bijnieren) to release catecholamines (adrenalin and noradrenalin) ➜ direct cardiovascular activation
  • hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) system:
    • Brain produce hormone that stimulate adrenal glands to release cortisol (‘the stress hormone’)

The allostatic load theory:

  • accumulation of load effects (job stressors and incomplete recovery) may, in the long run, result in chronic and serious health problems due to malfunctioning allostatic systems (SAM, HPA etc.) --> allostatic load

Why do overtime/long work hours have adverse health effects?

  • Lack of recovery mechanism
    • behavioral lifestyle mechanism (not mutually exclusive)
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Three important features to counter abnormal work hours:

  • Rapidly rotating shifts (1-3 night shifts before changing to day) are better in terms of effects that slowly rotating shifts, due to circadian disruption is neither fully diurnal nor nocturnal
  • Forward rotating (morning ➜ afternoon ➜ night) are better than backward rotating shifts.
  • Abnormal work schedules are often a source of psychological and emotional distress. The effects depend on the design of the schedule and the work/non-work conflict that is experienced.

Two types of recovery:

  • internal recovery (during work hours)
  • external recovery (after work hours)

Vacation may contribute to recovery from work through two mechanisms

  • Passive mechanism: release from daily exposure to job demands and stressors
  • Active mechanism: engagement in valued, pleasant and self-chosen non-work activities

Work time control (WTC):

the extent to which employees can decide for themselves the duration, position and distribution of work time. (Autonomy regarding work time)

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