Kiwi women falling asleep on the job

Many working women are finding it difficult to get good quality sleep. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand women are in the midst of an exhaustion "epidemic", with hundreds barely getting any shut-eye between working two jobs and looking after their families.

Sleep experts say "supermums" are putting their health at risk by trying to do it all.

Dr Alex Bartle, of the Sleep Well Clinic in Auckland, said office workers, people working indoors and shift-workers are at high risk of developing cancer, heart disease, obesity and workplace injuries by not allowing themselves seven to eight hours sleep each night.

He sees between 15 and 20 new patients a week suffering from insomnia and sleep apnoea - where people stop breathing while asleep.

"Young mums are a huge issue because they are trying to be supermums and do it all at once.

"There are a lot more opportunities for women and plenty more are entering the workforce but doing all these things leads to all sorts of anxiety and sleep issues.

"I see a lot of women trying to juggle everything and it's a huge problem," he said.

One 32-year-old nurse, who did not want to be named, had made "a number of mistakes" by going to work exhausted.

In a typical day she gets up at 5am to get her two children ready for school, before walking the dog, dropping the kids at school and then heading to work. She often has to work late and averages around 50 hours a week.

"I don't want to say what [the mistakes] were, but they were small - but when you're dealing with other people's health a small mistake is a big mistake," she said.

"I probably get about four hours sleep a night. I can't remember the last time I slept for more than seven hours."

A 2007 survey of 1366 New Zealand junior doctors showed more women than men said they were "excessively sleepy" and many admitted making errors due to fatigue.

About a quarter of doctors said they had fallen asleep while driving home from work with 21 per cent saying it had happened at least five times.

Forty-two per cent of doctors could recall making a fatigue-related clinical error in the past six months.

Director of the Sleep/Wake Research Centre at Massey University, Professor Philippa Gander, said the expectation of working long hours is detrimental to our health.

"We talk about it as being an epidemic because it's dangerous and many, many people suffer from various sleep issues.

"Women will often work two jobs or work nights, which is where you are more likely to make an error because your body is less functional and sleeping through the day is harder because you are working against your normal body clock."

Bartle said those who found they only had two or three hours of sleep a night should try to take a nap during the day or catch up on "sleep debt" on the weekends.

"Our lifestyle does need to change and you need to make the time to sleep," he said.

* Sleep deprivation

Karin Martin used to wake up at 3am worrying what the day would bring.

As a single mum to three children, studying naturopathy and working part-time, the 45-year-old often found it hard to cope.

"I was getting about five hours of sleep a night, which is nowhere near enough. Then my day was getting up by 6am, getting dressed, eating breakfast, sorting out the kids and getting them to school before going to classes.

"Then I'd come home and have assignments to do.

" It was like my brain had woken up thinking about everything - whether it was bills to pay or something else - and I couldn't switch it off."

After working with a naturopath and taking herbal sleeping pills, Karin said she learned how to switch her brain off. "I'm getting about seven hours of sleep now which has helped tremendously."