We've discussed many times before the relationship between sleep and weight. Another study this time from the US (the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre to be exact) highlights some interesting statistics.
"Short sleepers" had an average Body Mass Index (BMI) of 28.3, classed as overweight. Long sleepers had an average BMI of 24.5 - normal. The study suggested that even though short sleepers may use up 1,000 more calories and take an additional 25% more steps during the day they didn't (on average) reflect this in their BMI scores.
The reasons given were reduced levels of leptin (an appetite suppressing hormone) and increased stress, which in turn led to further restless sleep and a potential association with stress-eating.
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Lower sleep duration linked to ADHD in children
Research from the University of Helsinki published in the journal Paediatrics has shown a link between shorter sleep durations in children and an increased chance of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Researchers looked at 280 children and tested how long they slept for before comparing the results against a series of tests designed to diagnose ADHD. They found that children between 7 and 8 years old who averaged less than 8 hours of sleep a night had a higher chance of showing symptoms of ADHD. Those who slept for less than 7.7 hours scored higher in tests for hyperactivity and impulsivity than those who slept for longer. None of the Children were suffering from sleeping problems.
Dr Paavonen who led the study said "The findings suggest that maintaining adequate sleep schedules among children is likely to be important in preventing behavioural symptoms."
Researchers looked at 280 children and tested how long they slept for before comparing the results against a series of tests designed to diagnose ADHD. They found that children between 7 and 8 years old who averaged less than 8 hours of sleep a night had a higher chance of showing symptoms of ADHD. Those who slept for less than 7.7 hours scored higher in tests for hyperactivity and impulsivity than those who slept for longer. None of the Children were suffering from sleeping problems.
Dr Paavonen who led the study said "The findings suggest that maintaining adequate sleep schedules among children is likely to be important in preventing behavioural symptoms."
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Medical Staff make avoidable errors
Yesterdays papers carried news of the number of "avoidable errors" being made by "overworked medical staff." Apparently 4,000 avoidable errors were made last year with more than half (2,221) being considered serious resulting in death or serious pain - according to the Patients Association.
It seems clear that it is now time for hospitals and trusts to take a look at a fatigue management programme. MetroNaps has developed a programme that can asses levels of fatigue and train staff in how to prevent fatigue. Check out our website - www.metronaps.co.uk.
It seems clear that it is now time for hospitals and trusts to take a look at a fatigue management programme. MetroNaps has developed a programme that can asses levels of fatigue and train staff in how to prevent fatigue. Check out our website - www.metronaps.co.uk.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Visit our new website
After a great deal of work I am pleased to announce that we have completely revamped our website. Check it out - www.metronaps.co.uk
We detail our expanded range of products and services, we have packed the website full of facts and we now have a comprehensive information section that includes scientific studies. We also explains in detail why engaging MetroNaps will be positive for your business. As always if you have any comments please feel free to leave them through the form on the website.
We detail our expanded range of products and services, we have packed the website full of facts and we now have a comprehensive information section that includes scientific studies. We also explains in detail why engaging MetroNaps will be positive for your business. As always if you have any comments please feel free to leave them through the form on the website.
Fat tests for all
I know that obesity is becoming the biggest single health problem affecting this country but we the taxpayer pay these people to come up with solutions to problems. The latest idea to tackle obesity is to make everyone (between 40 and 74) take a "fat test" at our GPs. They will also target overweight NHS workers who may otherwise give a bad impression to others.
Barmy stuff, even if it had been spun with some subtlety! The answer to reversing the tide of obesity is to educate people to do more exercise, moderate their diet and sleep better - it really is that simple. The one area I strongly believe is being under-addressed is on sleep. The new government campaign says Move more, eat less but where's the information on sleep.
To understand how fatigue is linked to serious health issues and performance declines visit our website - www.metronaps.co.uk.
Barmy stuff, even if it had been spun with some subtlety! The answer to reversing the tide of obesity is to educate people to do more exercise, moderate their diet and sleep better - it really is that simple. The one area I strongly believe is being under-addressed is on sleep. The new government campaign says Move more, eat less but where's the information on sleep.
To understand how fatigue is linked to serious health issues and performance declines visit our website - www.metronaps.co.uk.
Stress Peaks on Tuesday morning
Yesterday's telegraph reported a piece of research undertaken by a health supplement firm. Apparently Tuesday morning at 11:45am is the most stressful point of the working week. This is (apparently) because we coast through Monday leaving the work to pile up for Tuesday.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Extra sleep better than sex
A study reported in the London Lite yesterday suggests that 80% of Britons prefer a good night's sleep to sex. The study of 8,500 people showed that people actually wanted more sleep. A staggering 12% of respondents said they got 8 hours sleep a night although 40% believed that this is what they needed.
Diabetes rates soar in the UK
An article in the Daily Mail last week highlighted research showing that there has been a 69% jump in the diabetes rate in the UK in a decade. This means that the problem of diabetes is now growing at a faster rate than the US - dubbed the diabetes capital of the world.
The growth is largely attributable to type 2 diabetes - associated with poor diet, lack of exercise and (as research has shown) lack of sleep. The study is based on data from the Health Improvement Network, which holds 5 million medical records from 300 general practices.
Whilst type 1 diabetes rates remained relatively stable, rates of type 2 diabetes rose from 2.6 cases per 1,000 to 4.31 cases, equivalent to an increase of 69% over the 10 years from 1996 to 2005.
The growth is largely attributable to type 2 diabetes - associated with poor diet, lack of exercise and (as research has shown) lack of sleep. The study is based on data from the Health Improvement Network, which holds 5 million medical records from 300 general practices.
Whilst type 1 diabetes rates remained relatively stable, rates of type 2 diabetes rose from 2.6 cases per 1,000 to 4.31 cases, equivalent to an increase of 69% over the 10 years from 1996 to 2005.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Health & Wellbeing at Work Exhibition 2009
Now in its third year MetroNaps once again exhibited at the 2009 Health and Wellbeing at Work exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. Having listened to a number of delegates who visited our stand as well as some excellent talks from leading industry figures from the public and private sector there appear to be some themes that emerged from the event.
The most interesting aspect of the event from our perspective was that across the board, (public and private sector) organisations had identified the number one issue facing their business as being fatigue / tiredness. It didn't seem to matter what the main area of the business was - whether office-based, commercial drivers, shift workers or others fatigue was a major issue.
A frequent theme from the speakers was that their organisations all took the health and wellbeing of their staff very seriously - which is to be applauded. More often than not organisations wanted to put in place programmes that gave their people the opportunity to take personal responsibility for their own health and vitality. This included education and choice.
Most of the organisations described the excellent work they had done in respect of nutrition and exercise as well as making it clear that staff should be looking at their life as a whole to determine what was most important to them. The disjoint from our perspective was that whilst these organisations had identified fatigue / tiredness as the greatest issue facing their business very few / none had implemented a programme to tackle fatigue.
This is where I think MetroNaps can play a major role in corporate health, safety and productivity initiatives. We have developed a fatigue assessment with one of the leading scientists in the US that can identify levels of fatigue. An individual completes a brief questionnaire and at the end receives a report highlighting areas of greatest need when it comes to managing fatigue. The organisation also receives a composite report that looks at levels of fatigue, how this impacts workday performance and some of the potential causes. Our training seminar helps people understand sleep, how they can achieve more sleep and how then can improve the quality of their sleep. Often they only need to take a couple of small points away to make a significant improvement to their night time sleep. We are also nearing the completion of a project to combine the assessment and training in one easy and cost-effective e-learning module.
If you would like to find out more about how MetroNaps can help your organisation improve health, safety, productivity, work-life balance and staff engagement please take some time to look at our website http://www.metronaps.co.uk/.
We look forward to helping your organisation in the near future.
The most interesting aspect of the event from our perspective was that across the board, (public and private sector) organisations had identified the number one issue facing their business as being fatigue / tiredness. It didn't seem to matter what the main area of the business was - whether office-based, commercial drivers, shift workers or others fatigue was a major issue.
A frequent theme from the speakers was that their organisations all took the health and wellbeing of their staff very seriously - which is to be applauded. More often than not organisations wanted to put in place programmes that gave their people the opportunity to take personal responsibility for their own health and vitality. This included education and choice.
Most of the organisations described the excellent work they had done in respect of nutrition and exercise as well as making it clear that staff should be looking at their life as a whole to determine what was most important to them. The disjoint from our perspective was that whilst these organisations had identified fatigue / tiredness as the greatest issue facing their business very few / none had implemented a programme to tackle fatigue.
This is where I think MetroNaps can play a major role in corporate health, safety and productivity initiatives. We have developed a fatigue assessment with one of the leading scientists in the US that can identify levels of fatigue. An individual completes a brief questionnaire and at the end receives a report highlighting areas of greatest need when it comes to managing fatigue. The organisation also receives a composite report that looks at levels of fatigue, how this impacts workday performance and some of the potential causes. Our training seminar helps people understand sleep, how they can achieve more sleep and how then can improve the quality of their sleep. Often they only need to take a couple of small points away to make a significant improvement to their night time sleep. We are also nearing the completion of a project to combine the assessment and training in one easy and cost-effective e-learning module.
If you would like to find out more about how MetroNaps can help your organisation improve health, safety, productivity, work-life balance and staff engagement please take some time to look at our website http://www.metronaps.co.uk/.
We look forward to helping your organisation in the near future.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Caffeine's negative effect on performance
Interesting research from America at the end of last year showing that caffeine can have a negative impact on performance. A team of scientists led by Dr Sara Mednick of the University of California studied 61 volunteers aged between 18 and 39 to monitor the effects of caffeine (a 200mg dose), a placebo and a nap on performance in verbal recall, motor skills and perceptual tasks.
With up to 90% of North Americans using caffeine every day little is know about the true effects of caffeine use. To date there is no conclusive evidence that caffeine has a (direct) negative effect on health and there is research to show that it can be beneficial to the risk of contracting degenerative brain disorders - but most people use caffeine to enhance productivity and is this correct?
The study split the volunteers, who were moderate caffeine drinkers and well-rested, into three groups. The volunteers were then trained in the morning on word recall memory tasks, finger tapping motor tasks and texture discrimination perceptual tasks. At noon the subjects were given lunch and at 1pm the nap group were asked to take a nap. At 3pm the caffeine and placebo groups were administered with the caffeine capsule or placebo capsule. At 16:00 (7 hours after initial training subjects were re-tested).
The verbal task required recall and recognition of 24 words from a word list read out in training. A further word list was also read out 20 minutes before testing to understand the effects on short term and long(er)-term memory. On testing the nap group performed marginally better than caffeine and placebo. However the 7 hour test found that the nap group performed significantly better than the caffeine group.
The motor task required volunteers to tap a keyboard in a sequence. Whilst there was little difference in the levels of accuracy across the three groups the caffeine group underperformed when it came to the number of correct sequences completed.
The perceptual task required volunteers to focus on a central point to determine a letter and in their periphery vision a series of lines was displayed that formed a pattern the volunteers were required to report. In this task the nap group performed better than the placebo group with the caffeine group performing in between.
The conclusions drawn from the study were that caffeine impaired motor performance, learning and declarative verbal memory versus both the nap and placebo groups, despite increase subjective alertness. A nap improved free recall memory relative to caffeine at 20 minutes and 7 hours and there was also greater learning on the motor sequence task in the nap group versus caffeine.
Whilst naps generally improved performance across the three different tasks, caffeine impaired (or at least did not improve) performance. The greater the explicit component of each task the worse the caffeine group performed. The researchers believe that caffeine leads to an increase of chemicals in the brain that block memory consolidation of new information.
The moral of the story is - if you need to assimilate a great deal of information - don't use caffeine!
With up to 90% of North Americans using caffeine every day little is know about the true effects of caffeine use. To date there is no conclusive evidence that caffeine has a (direct) negative effect on health and there is research to show that it can be beneficial to the risk of contracting degenerative brain disorders - but most people use caffeine to enhance productivity and is this correct?
The study split the volunteers, who were moderate caffeine drinkers and well-rested, into three groups. The volunteers were then trained in the morning on word recall memory tasks, finger tapping motor tasks and texture discrimination perceptual tasks. At noon the subjects were given lunch and at 1pm the nap group were asked to take a nap. At 3pm the caffeine and placebo groups were administered with the caffeine capsule or placebo capsule. At 16:00 (7 hours after initial training subjects were re-tested).
The verbal task required recall and recognition of 24 words from a word list read out in training. A further word list was also read out 20 minutes before testing to understand the effects on short term and long(er)-term memory. On testing the nap group performed marginally better than caffeine and placebo. However the 7 hour test found that the nap group performed significantly better than the caffeine group.
The motor task required volunteers to tap a keyboard in a sequence. Whilst there was little difference in the levels of accuracy across the three groups the caffeine group underperformed when it came to the number of correct sequences completed.
The perceptual task required volunteers to focus on a central point to determine a letter and in their periphery vision a series of lines was displayed that formed a pattern the volunteers were required to report. In this task the nap group performed better than the placebo group with the caffeine group performing in between.
The conclusions drawn from the study were that caffeine impaired motor performance, learning and declarative verbal memory versus both the nap and placebo groups, despite increase subjective alertness. A nap improved free recall memory relative to caffeine at 20 minutes and 7 hours and there was also greater learning on the motor sequence task in the nap group versus caffeine.
Whilst naps generally improved performance across the three different tasks, caffeine impaired (or at least did not improve) performance. The greater the explicit component of each task the worse the caffeine group performed. The researchers believe that caffeine leads to an increase of chemicals in the brain that block memory consolidation of new information.
The moral of the story is - if you need to assimilate a great deal of information - don't use caffeine!
Cannon's office productivity survey
Last year the technology company Cannon ran a pan-European survey of 5,508 people into office productivity. Some of the inevitable conclusions were that staff wanted better printer and IT efficiency, however, there were some other interesting findings from the survey.
On average Europeans work an average 8 hours day (excluding breaks) and believe themselves to be working at full capacity for about 6 hours a day. Alarmingly 33% of UK staff believed that they worked at full capacity for between 1 and 5 hours a day. The productivity peak was in the mid morning with lows between 12 and 1pm, after lunch and towards the end of the day. In larger companies staff were more likely to be less productive immediately after lunch.
Of those who believed themselves to be less productive in the morning 60% said it took them longer to fully wake up in the morning - an issue that was greater amongst 18 to 24 year olds. Of those who were less productive towards the end of the day 75% of them said it was due to general fatigue / tiredness.
20% of Brits saw their perfect break as being through a tea or coffee, whereas 26% of Austrians and 25% of French workers would prefer a siesta. Overall 38% of respondents thought a Power Nap would make them more productive. 13% of respondents saw a nap as a perfect break (10% in the UK) to increase productivity in the afternoon.
On average Europeans work an average 8 hours day (excluding breaks) and believe themselves to be working at full capacity for about 6 hours a day. Alarmingly 33% of UK staff believed that they worked at full capacity for between 1 and 5 hours a day. The productivity peak was in the mid morning with lows between 12 and 1pm, after lunch and towards the end of the day. In larger companies staff were more likely to be less productive immediately after lunch.
Of those who believed themselves to be less productive in the morning 60% said it took them longer to fully wake up in the morning - an issue that was greater amongst 18 to 24 year olds. Of those who were less productive towards the end of the day 75% of them said it was due to general fatigue / tiredness.
20% of Brits saw their perfect break as being through a tea or coffee, whereas 26% of Austrians and 25% of French workers would prefer a siesta. Overall 38% of respondents thought a Power Nap would make them more productive. 13% of respondents saw a nap as a perfect break (10% in the UK) to increase productivity in the afternoon.
Doctors falsifying records to comply with Working Time Directive
The Royal College of Surgeons has said that surgeons are under pressure to falsify working hours and work on days off as hospitals are struggling to comply with cuts in shifts. The college also believe that junior doctors should be allowed to opt out of the WTD to help ease the pressure on the system.
Patients are being put at risk as new rotas are being implemented to comply with the directive. The College points out that junior doctors in the US undertake an 80-hour week and that Germany had agreed to a 61-hour week. They also want the on-call rule to change so that sleeping in the hospital does not constitute working.
A survey of more than 1,000 surgeons found that over half of trainees felt under pressure to falsify records, 90% were regularly exceeding rostered hours, 85% were coming in on days off to operate and 70% said the reduced hours had not improved their work-life balance.
Clearly this is not a good situation. An opt-out (supported by 80% of respondents) would relieve pressure on rotas and also allow for additional training time. Re-rostering doctors as locums is essentially opt-out by the back door. At least an opt-out would provide transparency.
Patients are being put at risk as new rotas are being implemented to comply with the directive. The College points out that junior doctors in the US undertake an 80-hour week and that Germany had agreed to a 61-hour week. They also want the on-call rule to change so that sleeping in the hospital does not constitute working.
A survey of more than 1,000 surgeons found that over half of trainees felt under pressure to falsify records, 90% were regularly exceeding rostered hours, 85% were coming in on days off to operate and 70% said the reduced hours had not improved their work-life balance.
Clearly this is not a good situation. An opt-out (supported by 80% of respondents) would relieve pressure on rotas and also allow for additional training time. Re-rostering doctors as locums is essentially opt-out by the back door. At least an opt-out would provide transparency.
Jet lagged pilots
A study for the European Aviation Safety Agency has shown that pilots are flying tired and suffering from jet lag. The study found that fatigue was due to factors such as having to stay awake abnormal lengths of time, starting a shift deprived of sleep the night before and "task load" with concerns raised about how crossing time zones affected pilots' body clocks.
Clearly this is not good news for the flying public. Airlines need to take much more care of their people and need a comprehensive fatigue management policy in place. We (MetroNaps UK) welcome the opportunity to discuss fatigue management strategies with the airlines. we can undertake assessments and interventions that help pilots perform with improved alertness based on scientific research.
Clearly this is not good news for the flying public. Airlines need to take much more care of their people and need a comprehensive fatigue management policy in place. We (MetroNaps UK) welcome the opportunity to discuss fatigue management strategies with the airlines. we can undertake assessments and interventions that help pilots perform with improved alertness based on scientific research.
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