Does Flex Time Lead to Better Health?

　　A flexible schedule makes it easier to juggle job and family demands, but new research shows there's an added benefit: improved health.
　　Researchers at Wake Forest University talked to 3,200 workers at a major pharmaceutical company about their health habits, quizzing executives, support staff and warehouse and production employees about sleep, exercise and the overall healthfulness of their lives. The employees also were asked whether their jobs provided the flexibility needed to meet work, personal and family commitments.
　　Workers who strongly agreed that they had job flexibility also were more likely to engage in healthful behaviors, the researchers report in the current issue of The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Employees with flexible schedules exercised more and attended more employer-sponsored health classes. They also were more likely than those with more regimented routines to describe themselves as living a healthful lifestyle. Surprisingly, workers who felt they had job flexibility also reported getting more sleep.
　　The study wasn't designed to determine how job flexibility might contribute to longer sleep. But lead author Joseph G. Grzywacz, an associate professor of family and community medicine at the university, said that workers with flexible schedules may not be working as late as others, or they may be less stressed and sleeping better at night. Or, he said, it may be that these employees are able to structure their work lives in such a way that sleep time is protected.
　　The researchers also checked in with the workers a year after the first survey. They found that if an employee's job flexibility improved over the year, so did healthy habits. When flexibility grew, workers reported better sleep, attended more health classes and were more likely to describe themselves as having a healthful lifestyle. Yet improving a worker's schedule didn't automatically lead to more exercise, the study showed. It may be that a year was just too soon to see the full effect of improved flexibility.
　　（From The New York Times  December 13, 2007）

灵活的时间安排更益健康？

皓　月 译

　　灵活的时间安排使得协调工作和家庭需要更加容易，但是新的研究发现它还有另外一项好处：改善了人体健康。
　　维克森林大学的研究者和一家制药厂的3200名员工一起谈论健康习惯，询问管理人员、仓库和生产人员的睡眠情况、锻炼和总体生活健康状况，向这些员工了解公司是否提供了灵活的工作时间来满足工作需要、私人活动和家庭安排。
　　研究者在《职业和环境医学杂志》当前话题这个栏目发表报告说，那些有灵活时间安排的员工更可能专注于从事健康的生活活动。比起固定工作时间的员工，这些员工经常更多地锻炼身体，更多地参加老板组织的健康学习活动，愿意描述自己健康的生活方式。令人吃惊的是，这些时间灵活的员工睡觉更多了。
　　这项研究并没有得出灵活的时间安排对延长睡眠时间有益的结论，但是这所大学家庭和社区医学的助理教授约瑟夫•G. 格日瓦奇认为，有灵活工作时间的员工可以不向其他人一样工作很晚，或者他们的压力小睡眠好，或者他们可以科学安排工作和生活，保证睡眠时间。
　　研究者在第一次调查满一年后对这些员工又进行了观察，他们发现如果这一年时间安排逐渐灵活宽松，那么健康的生活习惯也逐步得到培养。灵活性增加，员工的睡眠更好，参加健康锻炼更多，更愿意描绘自己健康的生活方式。然而，研究表明，改善员工的作息时间表并不能自动地给他们带来更多锻炼，一年的时间对于评估灵活时间安排的全面作用来说毕竟太短了。
　　（译自美国《纽约时报》 2007年12月13日）