A sleep doctor explains how remote work affects sleep.
Remote work increased significantly during the corona pandemic.
Remote work also affects sleep.
– There is polarization. Some of them are probably coping very well, and that kind of work suits them. When the factors that set the rhythm of life already exist anyway, this increases work efficiency, productivity and also well-being, says the sleep doctor, docent Henri Tuomilehto.
– The other side of the coin is that you have jumped into cold water without even realizing it.
Tuomilehto is one of the world’s leading sleep doctors, who also talks about better sleep in his book The art of sleeping(Tammi, 2024).
Lessons learned for the NHL team
In addition to sleep disorder patients, Tuomilehto’s teachings have been trusted by hundreds of companies, as well as, for example, the NHL team Columbus Blue Jackets and Puolustusvoimat.
Tuomilehto reminds that remote work has been done in many fields before, but not on the same scale as during the corona virus.
– And this is here to stay. The challenge is that there has been very little discussion of the employer’s and employee’s perspectives, and it is probably quite a sensitive topic, he says.
Tuomilehto thinks that not many employers want to be stigmatized by demanding that employees are always at the office.
Advantages and disadvantages
Tuomilehto says that this is a new situation when it comes to remote work.
– A new situation can never be handled in the old ways. Now you have to understand what the benefits are and what the possible challenges and disadvantages are that this brings, says sleep doctor Tuomilehto.
– I think that this is such a new situation that many people have gone to spend a remote working day without having worked out how to do it at all.
The variation between remote work and daytime work at the workplace can resemble shift work.
According to Tuomilehto, studies show that especially evening and night work are extremely stressful for people.
According to him, numerous health hazards are also related to evening and night work.
The border blurred
Many have thought that with remote work, they will focus on themselves instead of commuting, for example on fitness.
– But then it just went to the fact that the boundary between work and free time has become more blurred, says Tuomilehto.
– The evening has become a more active time in people’s lives, when the day has been stretched forward, for example by sleeping two or three hours longer.
Tuomilehto reminds us that then everything else to be done during the day moves two to three hours forward.
– It can become health challenges for us. Sleep can start to rot when you wake up at a different time every other day.
Tuomilehto says that some do well, but if there are challenges in the dream, the problems can be really big.
Tuomilehto says in his book that when the circadian rhythm moves forward, bedtime also moves later.
“Our evenings have become an increasingly active time. It affects the quality of sleep. Deep sleep, which starts right at the beginning of the night, remains of a lower quality, and in the morning you are tired. We try to fix it by sleeping longer,” Tuomilehto says in his book.
The brain is fattening
– If you do chores in the evening, it doesn’t end there. When you go to sleep at night, the brain is still working. Sleep lacks quality. Those effects won’t come immediately, says Tuomilehto.
He says that the effects may not be felt during the next week.
– It can be a month or a year or two, and suddenly the ability to concentrate weakens or the memory starts to falter or the weight starts to accumulate.
In the middle of the night for surgery
Tuomilehto worked for a long time at the university hospital as a specialist.
– My job description included being on call. At night, when the phone rang, I went to the operating room. I know what it’s like to do responsible work at night. It was part of my job description and I liked it, says Tuomilehto.
According to him, many people who have chosen evening or night work do not realize how difficult and what kind of health risk evening or night work is.
The ability to regulate
Sleep doctor Henri Tuomilehto has been an entrepreneur for fifteen years, and he doesn’t even want to count his own working hours.
According to him, it is a skill to learn to regulate one’s own workload.
Henri Tuomilehto talks about his own experiences.
– I wake up early enough, which guarantees that I can, on average, take care of the things that need to be taken care of during the day. And if there is an acute situation where I have to do some work in the evening, I will do it, but that is not a rule, says Tuomilehto.
Not easy
According to Henri Tuomilehto, it is important to realize that you should go to bed early enough, even if it is not easy.
– It’s not easy in the long run, but it was worth taking the risk, Tuomilehto says about his own choice.
If something is left undone, Tuomilehto postpones the tasks to the next day.
– But I no longer have to do chores at night, as I used to do before.
– When I stayed up really late, I couldn’t get anything done during the day because I was really tired and sleep-deprived, Tuomilehto says.
– In a way, it’s the philosopher’s stone that many people stretch their working days really late, it’s not productive. And also how productive they are during the day when they have been awake at night.
– If you don’t sleep enough, you won’t get anything done during the day, Tuomilehto says.
Tuomilehto says that his own work was also affected when he had adjusted his work to the evening.
Now his own rhythm is fine.
According to him, aiming for a certain amount of sleep easily leads to completion.
– And if the execution is not successful, it easily leads to anxiety. And the truth is that the dream cannot be fulfilled.
“I’m a night owl”
– I’m an iltavirkku, says Tuomilehto.
He says that he knows what he has to do in the evening, but even more precisely he knows what he absolutely must not do in the evening.
– I have a standard waking time. I always wake up at the same time, when it’s in my hands. I go to sleep when I’m tired. I never look at the clock, and the need for sleep is different every night, says Tuomilehto.
The amount of sleep varies
Sleep doctor Henri Tuomilehto sometimes sleeps nine hours and sometimes six hours.
– I don’t stress about sleep. Even though I’m a sleep doctor, I also have bad nights, says Tuomilehto.
The sleep doctor also reveals what time he wakes up.
– I have quite often had a deadline of 7:45 or 8:15. Eight countries is the average, and I don’t sleep much over that.
– Everything is the main rule. I’m not a man of absolutes. There are times when I just decide that I can’t get up right now, and then I sleep longer.
In his book, Henri Tuomilehto gives advice for remote workers.
Advice from a sleep doctor
- Adjust your wake up. A clear circadian rhythm and the possibility of a good night’s sleep are based on regular waking up. If you sleep three hours longer than usual one morning, it will inevitably affect your sleep the next night.
- Organize your day. Take breaks between remote meetings. Agree together that remote meetings will basically last, for example, 25 minutes instead of half an hour or 50 minutes instead of an hour, leaving everyone 5-10 minutes to take a break and focus on the next task.
- Manage your state of alertness. Take small brain-resting breaks, eat healthy snacks, and take some oxygen jumping. Use your breaks for something other than fiddling with your digital device.
- Take care of regular meals during the day.
- Separate work and leisure time clearly.
- Avoid stretching into the evening. A working day that continues long into the evening is an additional burdensome factor. Sometimes a working day that continues into the evening is ok, but it cannot be recommended to do them regularly, or you start to accumulate a lot of bad nights. Then, in a way, you slide into night work and the related health risks.
- Leave room for unexpected situations. Don’t crowd your day.
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