Around 40.6 percent of BPO employees smoke, 35.9 percent of of them indulge in over two drinks/week as against 2.1 of day workers and 26.7 percent use narcotics drugs, when compared to 4.1 percent in the contolled group.
"These young people have to work when thier bodies want to sleep and they have to sleep when thier bodies are awke to face the day. As a result, they resort to consuming stimulants like cofee and energy drinks through out the night, and use alcohol or sedatives to put them to sleep during the day"
explains Dr. Suri the main authority author of study, pointing out that the body's biological clock is wound according to sunlight.
THE QUALITY OF SLEEP DURING THE DAY CANNOT MATCH THE DEEP SLEEP OF THE NIGHT, SAYS DR. SURI.
"When one travels to US, it takes 10 days for the body to get accomstomed to the time difference.But BPO employees living in India and working permanently on US time cannot adapt to the timings as the body clock is programmed, both genetically as well as habit from birth, to remain active during the day time," explains Dr. Suri
A former employee of a BPO, Richard, narrates how he got into major accidents, just three months apart, because he dozed off while riding his bike. "I used to work between 10pm to 4 am, and having a few drinks with my colleagues on the terrace of my saidapet office became a ritual. That was the only bit of social life we had, plus it helped us sleep," he admits.
The first time he dozed off while returning home to chrompet, he crashed into medium and hit his head. luckily, he escaped with broken shoulder and two small clots on his head. The second time, barely a month after he resumed working, Richard broke his leg, and rammed into an elderly pedestrain, who fractured an arm."That was when i decided that i could not cope with this job," he said.
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