hey guys
basically i just wanted feedback on my extended response scenario i did on stress so would be appreciated if feedback was given: I wrote the scenario + the question + my response . In terms of feedback i'm looking for mostly these things.
- what i did well
- what areas i need to improve in
- sentence structure (if i am writing in the correct format and using the write terms in my response)
- and also since this is out of 10 can you tell me how much would i get out of 10 please thank you.
And also feel free to add anything else that i may have missed
Scenario: Tim is a healthy 32 year old male. He has been working the night shift as an aircraft engineer for 12 months. The typical night shift roster at the company is four nights on, then four nights off. Each shift is 11 hours in duration, beginning at 7pm and finishing at 6am.
Once a year, the company runs an information session for all employees regarding the effects that shift- work can have on a person’s mental health and wellbeing. Tim’s new colleague, Allira, was unable to attend the information session and asked Tim to take detailed notes for her during the session. The information provided at this session included potential changes to the regular sleep-wake cycle of night- shift workers, potential consequences on a person’s physiological and psychological functioning if they were to regularly experience partial sleep deprivation, as well as one protective factor and one intervention that employees could use to adjust to changes in their sleep-wake cycle.
Considering the above information, create a detailed and clearly organised set of notes that Tim most likely would have taken during this presentation to give to Allira.
My Response
Sleep wake cycle
The sleep - wake cycle is our internal body clock that follows the day and night schedule and makes us awake during hours of daylight and asleep when darkness occurs. This happens because our body has a biological rhythm which is innate that tells us when to stay awake and when we should sleep by the help of a sleep hormone, melatonin. Melatonin helps regulate our sleep - wake cycle and helps us to know that during the night time, it is time for us to go to bed.
What happens when your sleep wake cycle is changed/ disturbed
When the sleep wake cycle is distrubed, our sleeping patterns change and disruptions can occur which can affect our performance in daily tasks when we have a poor quality and amount of sleep , compared to a good quality and amount of sleep, especially for us shift workers as we are working on a night shift, when during that time our body should be relaxing and be in sleep mode so our body can be replenished and rejuvenated so we can work efficiently the next day. During the night, melatonin (sleep hormone) is secreted into the hypothalamus. The melatonin responds to light around us. When it is night time, melatonin helps us to fall asleep by making you drowsy and your eyes become sensitive to the light around you. If we sacrifice our “allocated sleeping time” at work then our quality of sleep would be lower and we would be accumulating sleep debt (the hours you compensated for work instead of sleep which makes you indebt of the sleep hours you missed). This is an irregular pattern your body is following and it is a behaviour which is outside of the biologically programmed rhythm one is innate with.
Since we are working on a 4 night on and 4 night off shift, this can disrupt our circadian rhythm (bodily activities that occur within the 24 hours period). And our sleep wake cycle. Firstly since we are awake for 11 hours from 7pm to 6am , we are overworking the normal 8 hours shift. Secondly, we would tend to feel more tired at work because we are working at a time where we should be sleeping. Temperature during the night is colder and in the morning it's warmer. Same as our body. For us, shift workers it would be harder to fall asleep. Also when we would be working 4 nights on and 4 nights off our circadian rhythm would be going through a change quite frequently . This can have a harmful effect on our body and would make our circadian rhythm unstable because of the fact that our body’s juggling between the different times we are staying up and sleeping which can result into poor sleep quality because for 4 nights we are awake at the time we are suppose to be asleep and the other 4 nights we sleep at the required time.
Night shift effects on shift work- psychological and physiological
The effects of shift work can lead to partial sleep deprivation which can lead to someone's emotional, behavioural and cognitive functions to be impaired.
Affective Functioning- Your emotions are amplified, this means that you are going to be irritable and more snappy, and rude to the people around you aka the workers.
Behavioural Functioning - decreased participation at work and not being able to do simple tasks that we do everyday. This can affect us at work because we tend to do the job nearly everyday which can become an automatic process for us since we get used to it. This can lead us to stumble and become a harder task to do because of the lack of sleep and our connection levels are low.
Cognitive Functioning- Poor decision making. We would not be able to differentiate between the right and wrong behaviour clearly as we would enjoy the risk taking behaviour.
Intervention that can help with partial sleep deprivation (Bright Light therapy)
Bright Light Therapy is an intervention which helps regulate the internal body clock and modify it to the desired schedule. This is done during the day by you going through a procedure. This procedure happens by us exposing ourselves to an intense but safe amount of bright light on an angle facing not straightly directed to your face but at an angle to your face while you are doing your daily chores and tasks for a few hours, each day until your internal body clock matches the schedule around you. This helps in adjusting your sleep wake cycle especially for shift work as your sleeping schedule is matched to the environment gradually so you don’t experience sleep debt and be able to function during the shift work hours and feel energised and can work at your optimal functioning level.
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