Home » Business & Finance » Shift Work » Automatic Behavior - It's Not a Good Thing

Automatic Behavior - It's Not a Good Thing

© Stephen Weistling

Those of you who work night shift understand the continuous challenge of staying awake on the job. Statistics show that at least once during your shift, you experience a period of extreme fatigue, or may even enter a zombie-like state where your eyes may be open, but “no one’s at home.” In some jobs (air traffic control as an example), even a short period in such a state could spell disaster.

Have you ever driven a long, boring road only to realize later that you don’t remember one detail about the ride? What may have occurred, and researchers have documented it, is that your brain entered a period of “micro” sleep (sort of like when your computer goes into power conservation mode when you step away from it for a few minutes.) The problem is, your body is still attempting to function. This has been called automatic behavior syndrome.

Several years ago, researchers identified a means to indicate a person’s alertness, which was how long a they held their eyes closed when they blinked. The researchers wired them up to measure this, as well as to an electroencephalograph to measure the subject's brain waves. They were then given a driving test. As the person drove around town the eye blinks and brain waves were normal, indicating a high degree of alertness. But after an hour or two of open-road driving, their eyes started to stay closed a little longer during each blink until they eventually were fixed into a stare.

By this time, their brain waves measured a severely diminished level of activity, which resembled a deep sleep. This person was asleep at the wheel! We know this happens all the time, because we hear about accidents on the open road where drivers fall asleep – and never wake up again.

The same thing can happen to you on a night shift whether you are staring at a computer monitor, a control panel, or working at any number of jobs that require a repetitive motion such as assembly line work. This means that if you are in a safety-sensitive job, you can be dangerous!

What can you do about it? First of all, you can follow some of the tips we’ve discussed in the past to stay alert on the night shift. These suggestions included adequate lighting and ventilation, sanctioned “power naps,” music, and exercise. There is one additional factor that I recently realized helped me back in those good old days of rotating shifts – humor.

The copyright of the article Automatic Behavior - It's Not a Good Thing in Shift Work is owned by Stephen Weistling. Permission to republish Automatic Behavior - It's Not a Good Thing in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.