OUR loyal and dear readers keep us busy. We are not complaining, in fact your columnist is sincerely grateful for the interest and continuous enthusiasm to read the column. The feedbacks, reactions and questions come in barrage-text and calls, one or two days after our SunStar hit the newsstands. We surmise that this time, most of the messages we got pertained to the immediate past article on sleep, most likely from call center agents, and from professionals on graveyard shifts.
Sleep is necessary for good health. That is obvious, and therefore for survival associated with a feeling good life. However, up to now. Why sleep is needed and how it benefits humans- and take note, even animals have shut-eyes slumber- is not fully understood. Add to that the variability of individual needs; some have four hours sleep and remain alert and energetic the whole day, while most people would require the proverbial eight hours night time sleep to be maximally functional the next day.
Basic fully understood aspects of sleep include the fact that sleep is not a uniform state. It has several distinct stages through which it normally cycles five or six times every night. Stage l is the lightest level, during which the person is easily awakened- our physiology teacher emphasized that the last sensation before sleep occurs is the sense of audition and obviously also the sensation that awakens the person - and progresses to stage 4 - the deepest level during which waking is most difficult - here the muscles are relaxed, blood pressure is at its lowest, heart beat and respiratory rate are at their basal levels.
It is interesting to note that stages of sleep are accompanied by the so-called “eye movements” that is of the eyeballs. During the stage with Rapid Eye Movement (REM), the rate and depth of breathing increases but the skeletal muscles- which comprise 45-50 percent of the bulk of the human body- are greatly relaxed, more so even during the deepest level of the non-REM stage.
Most dreams occurs during the REM stage and stage 3, while most night talking, night terrors and night walking-somnambulism- occur during stage 3 drifting slowly into stage 4. During a normal restful sleep, REM sleep immediately follows the five to six cycles of the four-stage non-REM sleep.
For a while, these rapid eye movements as well as vital signs fluctuations in terms of blood pressure, heart and respiratory rates were questioned by both cynics, skeptics and even members of the medical community.
However, the advent of sophisticated instruments, gadgets, apparatus especially the EEG or encephalogram, in which electrodes placed on specific area of the head of the person- frontal, parietal, temporal etc. areas on the scalp- showed waves which differed in amplitude or height as well as rate per minute, hence conclusive correlations between the brain- the big boss of sleep issues- and the activity of the eyes and other organs in the body were established.
Now, let’s focus on the sleep problems of night-shift workers. Employees working at BPOs or call centers, whose clients are in the West, indeed would have the biggest problems; obviously they do it in a daily basis- meaning they are awake for the most part of the night when ordinary folks are in deep slumber, especially in Baguio. The different time zones is the determining factor here, meaning our Filipino call centers agents give up sleep during the night because their valued clients are awake in most parts of the globe. Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and all of California are 15 hours behind us, Toronto in Canada, New York and all the cities on the East Coast of the United States are 12 hours behind us that is our midnight is their lunch time at high noon, and London and most Western Europe cities are 6 hours behind us.
That said, the sad reality is that, we Filipinos, and probably citizens of most Southeast Asian countries, working in BPOs have the same sleep problems. One consolation is that, at least, we are not alone, Misery loves company. Cheers!