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Caffeine can help shift work employees

Written by: David Castillo on May 14th, 2010

Caffeine can help shift work employees

Businessman Sleeping at Desk --- Image by © Studio DL/Corbis | read this item

Researchers say that employees, who work non-traditional shifts, are less likely to make on-job mistakes when they’ve drank coffee or caffeinated energy drink.

The body clock is often disrupted when a person works at night shift. Often times, it leads to shift work disorder—a sleep disorder characterized by symptoms of insomnia and excessive sleepiness during work schedules.

The National Sleep Foundation says that around 14 percent of Americans work non-traditional shifts. And several on-the-job errors have been linked to sleepiness on the job.

Researchers from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine reviewed data from 13 studies about the effects of caffeine among non-traditional shift workers.

Depending on the study, the participants received coffee, energy drinks, food, and even pills. Majority of the studies tested the participants for their memory, attention, reasoning, and perception,

The results indicated that caffeine helped the workers improve their cognitive performance, reducing job-related errors in the process.