{"id":644668,"date":"2026-08-19T02:34:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T02:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/644668\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T02:34:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T02:34:28","slug":"the-one-middle-age-health-rule-that-can-keep-you-working-for-longer-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/644668\/","title":{"rendered":"The one middle age health rule that can keep you working for longer, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maintaining good sleep<\/a> habits in middle age could help people stay in the workforce<\/a> for longer, research suggests.<\/p>\n

By contrast, regularly disturbed sleep<\/a> or resting for nine hours or more was associated with leaving employment up to nine months earlier.<\/p>\n

To evaluate the impact of rest on career duration, researchers in Finland examined data from individuals aged 50 to 68.<\/p>\n

They analysed two separate studies: one involving more than 70,000 public sector workers between 2000 and 2016, and a second monitoring 6,071 Finnish adults from 1998 to 2013.<\/p>\n

Data on sleep was collected after people turned 50, and was categorised as either short (under seven hours), mid-range (seven to eight and a half hours) and long (nine or more hours).<\/p>\n

\"Sleeping<\/p>\n

Sleeping for lengthy periods of nine hours or more, or being disturbed regularly, were linked to leaving the workforce up to nine months earlier (Alamy\/PA)<\/p>\n

Disturbances included problems falling or staying asleep and waking too early.<\/p>\n

People who reported no disturbances had a working life expectancy of 13 years five months.<\/p>\n

This was compared with 13 years among those moderately disturbed two to four nights a week, and 12 years 10 months among people whose sleep was disturbed almost every night.<\/p>\n

The longest working life expectancy \u2013 almost 14 years \u2013 was among professional women who reported no sleep disturbances.<\/p>\n

The shortest \u2013 almost 12.5 years \u2013 was among men with severe sleep disturbances.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, public sector workers who slept from under seven to eight and a half hours had a working life expectancy of 13 years two months, while those who slept for more than nine hours were expected to work 12 years five months.<\/p>\n

Researchers also found a difference in working life expectancy between professional workers with higher levels of education and those in routine jobs with lower levels of education.<\/p>\n

Among 50-year-old public sector workers, the longest life expectancy was around 13 years seven months among men and women in professional roles and short sleep lengths.<\/p>\n

The shorted was six years five months, among men in routine jobs with low levels of education who slept for more than nine hours a night.<\/p>\n

Researchers said the findings, published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, suggest healthy sleep may help people keep working as they age.<\/p>\n

“To promote older adults’ participation in working life, supporting sleep of recommended length and good quality may be required,” they added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maintaining good sleep habits in middle age could help people stay in the workforce for longer, research suggests.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[18,135,19,17,181492,182347],"class_list":["post-644668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-public-sector-workers","tag-sleep-disturbances"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117119843975418883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}