Archive for the 'Shift Work' Category

Night shift workers frequently experience symptoms similar to that of jet lag.

They will have a disrupted or less sleep due to the adjusting to changing work shifts, sleeping in a brighter room than normal, external noise, and daily life going on around them.

According to sleep experts, no one ever totally adjusts to frequent shift changes.

Day sleep after night work will result in two hours shorter than night sleep. Deep sleep does not appear to be affected. Many workers make up at least some of their lost sleep time on their days off.

Permanent Night Workers

Permanent night workers, i.e. people who work for five consecutive nights in a row are probably better off than somebody alternating shifts because they can stay on the same eating and sleeping rhythms even on their days off.

Even though this may be ideal in physiological terms, in social and family terms that kind of discipline is hard. The significant thing is to stay with the same eating rhythms and try to sleep the usual length of time.

Going to bed everyday at the same time is particularly essential for graveyard workers, whose attempts to fall asleep and stay asleep are harder than it is for conventional sleepers.