Insomnia stemming from workplace bullying may be ‘contagious’: study

Norwich, England — Stress related to workplace bullying may disrupt the sleep of both employees and their partners, results of a recent study show.

Researchers from the University of East Anglia, Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Seville conducted two studies. They followed 147 workers for five days in one of the studies and, for the other, followed 139 couples for two months. Participants logged their exposures to workplace bullying, stressful thoughts stemming from work-related anger and indicators of insomnia.

Findings show that bullying contributed to multiple negative sleep outcomes for the affected workers and their partners, including trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, as well as waking too early.

“It is very interesting that insomnia is contagious,” Ana Sanz Vergel, study co-author and a professor in work psychology at East Anglia, said in a press release. “Partners appear to influence each other’s sleep severity and sleep impact, which is not surprising since one individual’s awakening could cause the other to wake up as well.”

Sanz Vergel adds that although workers may believe that thinking about the bullying behavior “may initially seem like a way to resolve issues or understand the situation, it can actually lead to more harm in the long run” if they do so persistently.

Sanz Vergel and her colleagues recommend that employers reduce workplace stressors and build healthy workplace cultures. For workers, they advise completing training on ways to disconnect from work as well as “couple-oriented prevention programs in the context of the workplace.”

The study was published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.