Does Working From Home Cause Sleep Problems?

Introduction: The Rise of Remote Work

There has been a significant shift in the global work culture with the adoption of home-based work by the majority of organizations and businesses. The advancing digitization and growing emphasis on work-life balance have also propelled this trend. Though started as a necessity, it has now become a part of the mainstream. Further, with the onset of COVID-19, we have witnessed a mass transition of the workforce from offices to home-based offices or virtual collaboration.

People have accepted and loved the flexibility of this new trend while navigating through this new work path. However, every path has some hindrances, which you come across only when you go through them.

The concept that was once supported to maintain work-life balance has disrupted it.

How?

In many ways. The expectations of being always online, readily available, and responsive have put undue pressure on work-from-home individuals.

Today, let’s focus on the sleep problems faced by remote workers and how they should tackle them to maintain a balance between their offline and online worlds.

Common Sleep Issues Faced by Remote Workers

Disrupted routines, work overload, and the inability to maintain a work-life balance have brought several sleep issues among remote workers. Some of the common issues people reported include:

• Sleep insomnia leads to difficulty falling asleep or the inability to sleep for the whole night.
• As some projects require individuals to stay awake at odd hours, there have been cases of daytime sleepiness. In this condition, individuals suddenly feel an urgent urge to sleep, which feels like a sleep attack. And it is a medical condition.
• People face disruptions in their natural sleep-wake cycle due to demanding jobs. As a result, you can’t sleep at night during normal hours and feel sleepy when you are at work.
• Lack of sound sleep is also a common sleep issue commonly noticed. Some people complained about having restlessness in their legs as they sat for long hours while working.

Factors Contributing to Sleep Problems

Disruptions in sleep quality, duration, and timing are common for people working from home. But what are the reasons that lead to your sleep regression? Let’s find out.

• If you are new to a home-based work routine, your normal routine is compromised. You have to get used to the new routine and adjusting to it may impact your sleep.
• When you commute to your office, you develop the habit of naturally waking up in the early hours. However, when you know you need not get dressed up for the office, you develop a propensity of going late in bed and then getting up late, disrupting your normal sleep cycle.
• When you are working from home, you often blur the line between your workplace and personal space. You are working late till night and even in the early mornings. Gradually, it affects your brain's functioning. Your brain fails to assess when to enter ‘work mode’ and when to enter ‘sleep mode.’
• Remote employees who are taking care of their kids at home while working often get less time to sleep. This multitasking makes them devoid of sleep initially, leading to sleep disturbances later.
• In the work-from-home culture, you tend to go through increased screen time as all in-person meetings are held online. Apart from your work, you spend personal time on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop. The blue light from all these devices greatly impacts your sleep.

Impact of Sleep Problems on Health and Productivity

Sleep disturbances are common in everyone’s life, but when they linger on for too long, they impact your health and work productivity. Go through the below-mentioned health and productivity issues and see if you are also facing any of these.

Health Effects

You may face the following health issues due to sleep deprivation:

• Sleep deprivation puts you at a higher risk of heart conditions.
• Sleeping less often weakens your immune system. A weak immune system falls prey to all sorts of bacteria and viruses.
• This may surprise you, but poor sleep patterns also lead to weight gain, mainly because of metabolic disorders. So, if you are gaining weight lately, it may be your sleep and not your food.
• Another major change poor sleep brings to your health is a decline in your cognitive functioning. You may also tend to develop symptoms of dementia.

Productivity Effects

Know how poor sleep patterns affect your productivity. Look at the issues:

• As your cognitive functionality reduces, you lose the ability to do even your daily tasks. It also impairs your decision-making and concentration power. With such health issues, you cannot expect a good return on your work.
• Poor sleep leads to tiredness, which further leads to more mistakes and slower response time for any task. With this, you take more time to complete tasks, affecting your productivity.
• Proper sleep keeps your mind and body fresh. Sleep disturbances often affect your ability to learn new things and memorize information. With such impairment, you cannot deliver quality work on time.
• Last but not least, your insomnia may develop sleep anxiety within you. You may feel emotionally weak and less motivated and face severe mood swings. All these issues affect your productivity while working from home to a large extent.

Tips for Improving Sleep Quality While Working from Home

For people who are undergoing sleep issues while working at home, the common question is “How can I sleep properly?” or “What should I do to get hours of deep sleep?”

Let’s get answers to these questions:

• Define Working Hours: Draw a clear line between your work and personal life and refrain from overlapping. Setting clear boundaries is the only way to maintain a work-life balance.
• Get Sun Exposure: It sounds weird, but getting some natural light helps you set your circadian rhythm, influencing your sleep-wake cycle.
• Maintain Good Sleep Hygiene: Don’t just shut down your laptop and sleep with it lying beside you. Avoid sleeping in the same room where you work. Your bedroom should be clean, quiet, and dark when you enter to sleep there.
• Follow a Sleep Routine: Create a sleep schedule and stick to it strictly. Avoid watching mobiles before bed, and don't snooze when it's your waking time. For a good night’s sleep, practice meditation, reading books, or listening to some soft music.‍
• Dress-up for Work Every Day: Don’t start working right after you get out of bed in your pajamas. Wake up on time, complete your morning rituals, and dress properly in formals. With this, you develop a professional feel and don’t feel lazy and sleepy all day.
• ‍Move, Move, and Move: This is the mantra that works for all your life worries. Make it a habit to do at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. With this, all your body functions and systems work properly.

When to Seek Professional Help

Despite all your efforts, if you feel that you persistently have sleeping issues, it’s time to seek professional help. Before going to health experts and saying “I can’t sleep,” you must know when exactly you should visit them:

• If you take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep every day.
• If you feel tired even after sleeping for the whole night.
• If you experience night terrors, sleepwalking, and other such abnormal behaviors during sleep.
• If a lack of sleep is affecting your mental and physical health.
• If you fail to properly manage your everyday tasks.

Conclusion

Working remotely is quite a challenge these days. With growing expectations from companies, personal responsibilities, a lure for multitasking, and work overload, working from home has its own set of downsides.

Try to offload some work and extract time for yourself and your family. You can offload your invoicing work to Ruul’s global invoicing solutions. With Ruul’s automated solutions, you can be free from invoicing and dedicate time to more important tasks.