Estimated sleep debt and work stress in Japanese white‐collar workers

Abstract

Sleep debt on weekdays in Japanese white-collar workers, estimated using a questionnaire, was associated with age, overtime, and self-rated workload.

Long workhours and health

“…The selected studies concerned 9 European samples (26-28, 36, 41, 43, 47, 49, 50, 51), 4 samples from the United States (29,32,42,48), and 13 Japanese samples (30, 31, 33-35, 37-40, 44-46, 52). Twelve studies had mixed-gender samples (26,27,29,32,34,(41)(42)(43)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51), although one was predominantly male (32) and one predominantly female (48). The other 14 studies had allmale samples (28, 30, 31, 33, 35-40, 44-46, 52).…”

“…Seven studies (30,33,34,39,44,45) investigated associations between extended workhours and hours of sleep. All the studies (except for reference 33) found negative associations between sleep hours on weekdays and extended workhours.…”

A Cross‐sectional Study of the Association between Working Hours and Sleep Duration among the Japanese Working Population

“…Two possible explanations for this are (1) that people working long hours on weekdays spend holidays attending to personal matters that cannot be taken care of on weekdays and (2) that they became accustomed to a short sleep duration. Kageyama and colleagues reported that the amount of overtime was positively correlated with the amount of time spent sleeping on the nights before holidays 4) ; however, a later report stated that sleep length before holidays was inversely correlated with overtime 7) . This latter result concurs with that of our study.…”

“…The results of our study suggest a need to review this claim and are therefore noteworthy. Kageyama and colleagues reported a significant negative association between ≥60 hours overtime per month in the previous 3 months and sleep length on weekdays among Japanese white-collar workers 7) . Almost half of the women in this study worked <7 hours per day, and most appeared to be parttime workers.…”

“…All of those studies had been conducted in Japan; one used a longitudinal design 2) , and the others used a cross-sectional design 3−7) . Among them, only one focused on the association between sleep and working hours 7) . In November 2010, Kobayashi et al conducted a systematic review of studies published in 1998 or later on the role played by sleep duration in the association between working hours and cerebrovascular/cardiovascular diseases 8) .…”