The relationship between sleep and work: A meta-analysis.

Abstract

Sleep has tremendous importance to organizations because of its relationship with employee performance, safety, health, and attitudes. Moreover, sleep is a malleable behavior that may be improved by individual and organizational changes. Despite the consequential and modifiable nature of sleep, little consensus exists regarding its conceptualization, and how the choice of conceptualization may impact relationships with organizational antecedents and outcomes. To offer a stronger foundation for future theory and research about employee sleep, this study calculated meta-analytic correlations of sleep quality and sleep quantity from 152 primary studies of sleep among workers in organizations. Analyses revealed that both sleep quality and sleep quantity associated negatively with workload and a number of health, attitudinal, and affective outcomes. Despite their conceptual similarity, notable differences existed in sleep quality and sleep quantity in terms of their relationships to many different correlates. Generally, the relationships between sleep quality and the examined correlates were stronger for variables that reflected perceptions. Moderator analyses showed that relationships between sleep quality and quantity may be affected by measurement method and the number of self-report items used, while there is little evidence of the effect of measurement time frame. Findings from this first meta-analytic investigation of the occupational sleep literature have implications for the development of theory about relationships between sleep and work, the measurement of sleep, the identification of organizational correlates of sleep, and the design of interventions intended to improve employee sleep. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social Stressors at Work, Sleep, and Recovery

“…Empirical research has shown that interpersonal conflicts may be associated with increased sleep disturbance (Brissette and Cohen 2002). A recent meta-analysis on work conditions and sleep (Litwiller 2014) reported a significant association between sleep quality and workplace bullying (q = -0.23, k = 3), and between sleep quality and workplace violence (q = -0.20, k = 2). A recent systematic review on social stressors and sleep found 14 studies (Pereira et al in press), ten of which reported correlations between these variables.…”

“…However, other than work-family conflict, recovery during Sundays has not received much attention so far, although impeded recovery processes are said to be the crucial link in the development of ill-health in the long run (Geurts and Sonnentag 2006). Sleep plays a particularly prominent role in the research on recovery; studies have shown that work-related stressors are positively linked to sleep impairments (e.g., Ekstedt et al 2006;Lallukka et al 2011;Litwiller 2014) and that sleep impairments are positively linked to ill-health (e.g., Drake et al 2005). In a recent study, healthy men and women received viral exposure; it was tested whether sleep, measured by actigraphy, predicted the incidence of colds (Prather et al 2015).…”

Feeling exhausted or vigorous in anticipation of high workload? The role of worry and planning during the evening

“…First, many studies examined the consequences of workload for well-being (Alarcon, 2011;Ilies et al, 2010). Third, morning wellbeing might be closely related to sleep quality (Litwiller, Snyder, Taylor, & Steele, 2017;Scott & Judge, 2006). Thus, relationships between workload anticipation and nextmorning well-being might be due to high experienced workload.…”

Teacher’s sleep quality: linked to social job characteristics?

“…The psychophysiological activation that occurs as a response to social exclusion, however, should be incommensurate with the deactivation that is a main characteristic of sleep. A meta-analysis on work conditions and sleep reported a significant association between sleep quality and workplace bullying (Rho=−0.23, k=3), and between sleep quality and workplace violence (Rho=−0.20, k=2)29 ) . A recent systematic review on adverse social job characteristics and sleep found 14 studies, ten of which reported correlations20 ) .…”