Work performancing and making sure you are able to keep the job that supports your family can introduce a major source of stress into your life. Your new job may be great, as far as benefits and striving towards what you want in your career. However, it could be costing you your sleep. 

Regardless if you are in a new job, old job, or looking for a job, there are many "job jitters" that can creep into your sleep. New jobs can create worries about imposter syndrome, getting along with colleagues, and concerns about workload. This is called anticipatory anxiety, and can fall into the same category as Sunday scaries. 

Stress can make it impossible to get a good night's rest, especially if it's associated with rumination. A survey found that 73% of respondents have lost sleep due to worrying about work. New job and current job worries are normal, but shouldn't take over your life. Continue reading to learn how to take back the night and get a good night's rest. 

Sleep quality and work performance

Although you may feel like staying up late to finish something can improve your work performance, it's probably not worth it. This will lead to extreme fatigue the next day, which can lead you to falling asleep during important meetings and have trouble completing your tasks. Over 65% of employees say they are tired at work, and most of them are at jobs where being alert is crucial for their and other's safety.

Sleep deprivation can affect anyone . However, if you are new at a job, you want to make especially sure that you are awake, alert, and performing at your peak efficiency. Getting a good night's rest is essential for making decisions, staying focused on tasks, and limiting errors. Employees who had trouble getting a good night's rest reported higher rates of absenteeism and lower work performance ratings.  

This relationship is also bidirectional. The fact that sleep affects work means that work can also affect sleep. One study found that the higher one's job was in stress, the lower their sleep quality. Another study found that American workers had trouble falling asleep for 5.3 days, had trouble staying asleep 6.6 days, and found it hard to wake up for 5 days. Most of these correlate with the standard five-day work week. Other work factors that impacted sleep quality include performing repetitive tasks, reduced job autonomy, and work overload. 

Increased health problems with stress and no sleep 

The lack of sleep and increased work stress not only impact one another, but also one's health. It is harder for your body to stay healthy when you are stressed out at work and haven't gotten any sleep. 

In a 2019 study, nearly 2000 workers had high blood pressure but cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Those with work stress had 35% higher chance of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those with low work stress. If one had sleep issues, their risk increased even more. But those with both stress and sleep issues were 3x more likely to die from a cardiovascular related incident than those without either of those risk factors. 

One reason this can happen is because of the link between the immune system, sleep and stress. Stress can put the body in an inflammatory-friendly state, which can lower the immune system. A lack of sleep can also have this same effect. In addition to that, work stress and a lack of sleep can increase the rate of cortisol in the body.

Cortisol is the stress hormone that can elevate the blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, and inflammatory molecules in the body. Sleep and times of relaxation give the body a chance to reset from these elevations, that are fine with transient. But, as soon as they become chronic, then that's when the body's unable to properly manage it. 

Tips for improving sleep and reducing stress

Don't bring work to bed 

It's important that you separate work and home environments. Especially if you work from home, it is easy to bring work with you to bed. However, working in your bed only confuses your brain and associates that space with these stress from working. Choose a different area of the house to work, and when you're ready to go to bed, leave all your work in that other area. 

Make a to-do list 

Sometimes, our minds are swirling with all of the things we have to do for the next day. This can make it nearly impossible to get to bed. That's why it's important to utilize a to-do list and get all of that information out of your brain. Brain dumping those tasks can put them in a different space for you to deal with them when you have a fresh and clear mind the next morning. 

Remove devices from the room 

Do not bring devices to bed. The blue light can interfere with melatonin production. Melatonin is the primary sleep hormone, and is controlled by access to light. More light leads to less melatonin, which is the opposite of what you want when you are trying to go to bed. Additionally, your devices may have your email or text messages which can keep you up late working much later than you should. 

Practice good sleep hygiene

Sleep hygiene is what you do to prepare for sleep. This includes your pre-bedtime routine, as well as your sleep environment. You should do the same things before bed over and over to train your brain on what to do when it's time to go to sleep. Your sleeping environment should be cold, dark, quiet, and clean. Limit your distractions and turn off anything that could stimulate your brain. If you can't sleep in a totally quiet room, then a TV show with minimal action turned down low may be appropriate. Music and white noise may also be other options.  

https://www.sleep.com/sleep-health/job-jitters