Juggling work, informal caregiving hurts sleep’

For people who are in the workforce already, the added burden of unpaid caregiving for a family member or loved one may lead to insomnia and other sleep issues, according to a large study from Sweden. Researchers found that the likelihood of sleep problems rose with the number of hours spent in unpaid caregiving, and when caregiving stopped, sleep disturbances were reduced. Lawrence Sacco of King’s College London and his colleagues at the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University analysed responses from 12,200 participants. “This is a wake-up call to governments and employers that they should support informal caregivers better,” Sacco said.