Workplace harassment damages sleep and affects couples' rest, study reveals

Workplace bullying is linked to a wide range of negative health effects , including poor sleep and rest quality, a repercussion that can also spread to partners, according to an international team of researchers.

Scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the United Kingdom, the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Seville in Spain have provided new evidence on the short-term consequences of workplace bullying on several sleep indicators and today publish the conclusions of their work in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

These effects include waking up too early (sleep severity), interference with daily life (sleep impact) and dissatisfaction with one's sleep (sleep satisfaction), the research centers have reported.

Researchers have examined how bullying at work, whether by superiors or coworkers, affects insomnia and the role played by "anger rumination," which involves repeatedly and persistently thinking about stressful events, such as bullying.

They found that the relationship between bullying and sleep increases over time, particularly in relation to difficulties falling asleep, staying asleep and waking up early in the morning, and is explained by the employee's work-related anger and constant rumination.

They also found evidence that insomnia symptoms are contagious between employees and their partners, meaning that one person's sleep problems (both severity and impact) can influence the other, highlighting how interconnected sleep health can be with personal relationships.

Lead author from the UK, Professor Ana Sanz Vergel from UEA's Norwich Business School, said the results showed that the effects of workplace bullying are time-dependent and cumulative, and extend beyond the individual and the work environment to also affect a partner's sleep.

Currently, knowledge about the short-term impact of bullying processes on sleep and the association between bullying and sleep is limited, which is relevant according to researchers considering that sleep problems are usually immediate or short-term responses to stressful situations.

To address this issue, the team conducted two studies: the first followed 147 employees for five days, and the second followed 139 couples over a two-month period.

In both cases, participants, all of them Spanish, had to report their exposure to workplace bullying, anger-related rumination at work, and different indicators of insomnia.

In light of the results, the authors have recommended that interventions around workplace bullying be designed at both the organizational and individual level. From an organizational point of view, reducing stress factors and promoting a healthy organizational culture are crucial, they have observed.

And at the individual level, interventions should focus on developing skills to help people deal more effectively with stressors.