Understanding Stress-Sleep Nexus: A Study in Workplace Setting of Islamabad

Abstract

Workplace stress refers to the harmful physical, emotional, or mental response caused by expectations, pressures or demands in a work setting that transcends a person’s ability to cope. It arises when employees at work feels overwhelmed or unable to meet the challenges they face at work. Whereas sleep quality refers to how well one sleeps. Workplace stress may lead to anxiety, depression, helplessness, irritability, fatigue, headaches, migraines, and many more other symptoms. These symptoms may further contribute to the disruption in one’s sleep pattern and duration. The purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional study was to examine the association between workplace stress and sleep quality among employees of Bahria University E-8 campus, Islamabad. The study which used standardized scales used to assess sleep quality and workplace stress in addition with some demographic questions to gather data on the impact of workplace stress on the sleep quality, involved 159 employees from the University setting in total. The finding showed that 20% of the employees were experiencing workplace stress on a potentially dangerous level and 51% of participants were suffering from poor sleep quality. Factors like work-life balance, tight deadlines and work overload were seen to be most prevalent. This research also found that in order to prioritize employee’s mental health, sleep quality and over all wellbeing, practical and policy interventions for reduction of workplace stress are much needed.