Our work schedules most of the time put a strain on us, and it’s no surprise that a recent study found out that the irregularity of our work can negatively affect our bowel schedule.

Published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, the study said that scientists examined the effect of rotating schedules, dayshifts, nightshifts and lack of sleep to the bowel syndrome of nurses.

Here are the results of the experiment:

* A total of 214 worked straight days, 110 worked straight nights, and 75 rotated between day and night shifts.
* 48% of nurses on rotating shifts had IBS related problems; as did 40% of those working straight nights, both high figures when you consider the much smaller sample size.
* By comparison, 31% of those working straight days, had IBS symptoms, which is much more than you might expected in the general population (up to about 20 percent).

It means that although the figures are close, working nights and rotating shifts still reflected the most negative effect on nurses while working day hours resulted to a more consistent pooping hours.