Are you in your twenties? Here’s why you should stop working night shifts!

Working night shifts when you are young could have health consequences once you are over fifty, according to a study published in the journal PLOS. Affected people would be at greater risk of depression.

More depression among night workers

This study focused on more than 7,000 American workers over several decades. Among them, the majority had office hours but 17% of them worked odd hours.

Among these night workers, cases of depression were more numerous, after the age of 50, than among workers with “classic” hours. This observation is even more striking among people who have changed their work rhythm during their career.

Women more affected than men

This work also shows that women who work nights or who have worked nights at a younger age are more affected by this increased risk of depression, particularly black and Hispanic women.

“Across all education categories, black women with jobs with less stable hours than at the start of their careers are the most likely to be in poor health among all groups examined“, says Wen-Jui Han, co-author of the study.

Night work, more frequent for workers

According to figures from the Inequality Observatories, 6% of French employees usually work at night, between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Workers are twice as concerned by night work (12%) as employees and intermediate professions (6% and 5% respectively). Only 1% of executives work at night.

Working regularly at night can damage the health of employees. Current knowledge shows that night work increases the risk of sleeping troubles and psychological pathologies, metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases and promotes the appearance of certain cancers.