The Most Sleep-Deprived And The Most Well-Rested Jobs

Maybe, if you're lucky, you have a job that allows you to work flexible hours or even from home, and you can sleep late when you're feeling tired. Or maybe you have a job that affords you the opportunity to nap at work.

But in many of the most stressful jobs, it's not uncommon to stay up late putting in extra hours and wake up early to do it all over again, trapped in a vicious cycle of sleep deprivation and over-caffeination. To highlight those fields where workers are the most tired, mattress company Sleepy's analyzed a set of data from the CDC's National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and ranked occupations based on whether or not workers were getting enough shut-eye. (The average adult needs seven to nine hours a night, according to the National Sleep Foundation.)

Some of the worst offenders are occupations you might expect to see on a list like this. We know, for instance, that shift workers (like night nurses or paramedics) are at risk for sleep problems (not to mention heart disease and diabetes). And a 2011 study suggested that some 40 percent of police officers have a sleep disorder -- causing many to fall asleep on the job.

The jobs on the well-rested side of the spectrum may be less stressful, according to a Sleepy's press release, and also often involve daylight-only schedules in some instances (think construction or forestry), which limits late-night hours.

Click through the slideshow below to see the full rankings, from the most well-rested to the most sleep-deprived jobs, and tell us in the comments below if your job made the list.

For more on sleep, click here.

Comments

[Mike Chaleff]

05:35 PM on 03/21/2012

great info, and definitely beneficial advice... but, there are plenty of people who are out there searching for a good source for good quality memory foam mattress sites, with the lowest memory foam prices that can be found online... the best source that i've personally found that can beat any price guaranteed is www.ExpressMemoryFoam.com , from my personal experience... check them out if you happen to be one of those people out there searching for a great memory foam mattress & pads site that has the best valued & compassionate prices on the web. :)

[The road less traveled]

07:44 PM on 03/06/2012

Good old hard working everyday nurses should be listed up there too Michael Lindung...Not just "night shift". You come in before the doctor, you get things ready, the doctor walks in and you immediately go from the person you were to the child that has to ask to take a blood pressure. Then you have someone stand over you most of the day that won't even write their own prescriptions but signs them as they did, you look up the hundreds of codes to tests as someone stands over your shoulder saying "do you have that yet" and "you know my next patient just came in"...and you want to say well...yeah..if you would maybe write your own stuff I could put them in a room for you, then you are asked to "skip" your lunch without pay because a patient has decided to keep the doctor for an hour about something other than medicine, then the doctor says at 5, "i'm so tired, I'm going home" "see you tomorrow", and they leave you with your mountain of work to finish. You go home and can't sleep from worrying if you have it all done. Plus the normal worries of life. I can't sleep without ambien. The articles of "how to get a more restful nights sleep" only stress me out worse...I'm gonna hush!

[Michael Lindung]

12:43 PM on 02/29/2012

How are soldiers/sailors/airmen/Marines not even in the top 10 of sleep-deprived jobs?

[The road less traveled]

07:45 PM on 03/06/2012

I agree with you 100%!!!

[mickeyfrombuffalo]

06:55 PM on 02/27/2012

There is a four minute difference between the end of the most rested list (teachers) to the beginning of the most sleep deprived. Wow. Some scientific theorizing here. To me everyone is undersleeping on this list. No one is getting 8 hours. Americans all work too hard. Productivity is up, and salaries are down.

[The Cupcake Kid]

11:30 AM on 02/26/2012

My vote for the most sleep deprived is the mother of newborns and special need infants!

[tenaciousnge]

03:03 AM on 02/26/2012

Wow... I've been working as a bartender for a long time... try Tuesday through Saturday 6pm-4am closing shifts... No Sleep- and if you tried, you wouldn't have a daytime life...

[lowal2012]

12:21 AM on 02/26/2012

CLEARLY this article was not well-researched. These are vague generalizations and that's about as close to valid as this article got. The "average sleep times" did not have a vast difference between them and did not take into account things such as what a sales rep was selling or where the police officer was patrolling. And for teachers to make the well rested list is just a joke.

[clyde jones]

11:25 PM on 02/25/2012

So, the difference between the "most rested" and "most sleep-deprived" occupation is a whopping...wait for it......23 minutes!! 23 minutes!! Seriously? Is this even statistically valid or notable? Margin of error?

[Rteefact]

10:24 PM on 02/25/2012

I worked 31 yrs shift work my last 10yr exclusively at night for the extra 1.05 per hr differential...yeah public service workers make big bucks. We went from 12-8am to 10pm-6am, the circadian rhythm seem a bit better especially if you rushed home when it was still dark. I used to average around 4-6 hrs and even after retiring I have bouts of insomia. Its definitley not a healthy lifestyle. I would go weeks without ever having a hot meal because nothing was open. When you go to work tired you come home tired. I was known a few time to sleep 20-24 hrs w/o ever waking up. Note this study is probably one of the many that various people participated in around the country I did many years back.

[yappnmutt]

10:17 PM on 02/25/2012

small business owner has no time for sleep or time off or vacations.

[dianawatk]

10:12 PM on 02/25/2012

Wait, so the difference between the most well-rested and the most sleep-deprived is about a half hour of sleep per night? I don't buy it. I don't buy that 7 hours 15 mins on average is enough sleep for anyone, let alone to claim they're "well rested", nor do I buy that 7 hours on average is the most sleep deprived!

[rockymtnal]

10:00 PM on 02/25/2012

All this "my job is harder than your job...I get less sleep than you" garbage is just that. Garbage. Like everything, it all depends on the person. I worked with people who spent 20+ years on night shift or working rotating shifts, and everyone reacts to it differently. Some slept just fine, others needed to take supplements (melatonin or benadryl seemed to be the top choices when I was doing it).

I worked seven consecutive years of night shift, either 11-7 or 10-6, and thought I was doing okay. I'd get maybe six hours of sleep on a good day, a lot less on a bad one. What I didn't realize is how exhausted I was, all the time. You either try to keep your sleep cycle the same on your weekends (and not spend time with family as a result), or you stay up all day after work on your Friday so you can be awake on your weekend and then try to take a nap the evening before you go back to work. Really hard to handle, particularly if you have a family.

One of the worst I worked was two nights followed by three swings. After working two nights, I'd get off shift at 7:15 am, get home around 8:30, and have to get up by 12:30 in order to get ready to be at work by 2:45 pm. And after that, it was another hour-long commute to my bed.

[werndone]

09:53 PM on 02/25/2012

The Donutmen really have it tough! Sleep in their cars and eat dounuts all day---what a joke!

[rockymtnal]

10:06 PM on 02/25/2012

Actually, it's eating donuts in their cars...because there are few other places open at 3:00 am while you're home sleeping it off.

[Kalamityjane44]

11:20 PM on 02/25/2012

If you think it is so easy...give it a try. Oh, I forgot, you are an idiot, not elegible for that kind of work. If only once in your life you needed a cop you would change your mind. Not sure where you live but in the cities in Southern California no cop sleeps in his car, takes the police car home or uses company gas as suggested.

[Frisco 109]

09:40 PM on 02/25/2012

I work for the railroad as a locomotive engineer-sleep deprived is part of the job as well as all of the men who work for the Railroad

[Carlos Llamas]

09:45 PM on 02/25/2012

I agree, how come railroaders didn't make the list, I haven't slept in 23 years!!!

[Thad W Davis]

09:16 PM on 02/25/2012

Railroaders!