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Lesson 7

Shift Work and Sleep

I was not able to find consistent statistics on how many people work on shift work, but the average figure for western countries is in the region of 20% of people involved in shift work. As business tries to extract more profit from it's fixed assets, it is likely that an even higher percentage of people will be asked to work on shift work.

Unfortunately for many people, working when their body functions think that they should be sleeping means that they are not very effective. About 20% of people working shift work report falling asleep on the job, most often in the 2nd half of the night shift. The real number could be much higher.

There are a number of different types of shift work, but we will talk about the effects of three of them. Possibly the most common type is where people work a fixed shift, at least part of which covers time when the body would normally be sleeping - an example would be a fixed night shift from midnight to 8am.

The second common type of shift work is where the worker changes shift periodically. Usually the shifts are 8 or 8.5 hours, and follow a pattern like day shift for 7 days, 2 days off, night shift for 7 days, 2 days off, evening shift for 7 days and 4 days off.

The third type is where a worker works an extra shift on a regular basis, especially in industries where the amount of work required varies a lot from day to day.

The first type where the shift is fixed is usually the easiest for people to adjust to. The circadian rhythm is just a 24 hour cycle, and it can adjust within a few days to any starting point for the cycle. However if the worker reverts to a normal cycle on days off, the adjustment has to start again.

The other shift types are less easy to adapt to because the circadian rhythm is constantly readjusting to change.

The body's reaction to shift work change, or SWC as it is known, has been studied a lot by sleep researches, as it provides an easy way of collecting data on the effects of sleep disruption.

When the various body clocks and external stimulants like night and day are not consistent with each other, it is difficult to get enough of the various stages of sleep, for the body and mind to function at their peak performance.

A typical night shift worker, say on a 11pm to 7am shift, experiences fatigue at around 3am. The body temperature is falling at this time, so the worker feels tired. You will remember from the lesson on the body temperature cycle that the body temperature is lowest from about midnight to 6am.

In addition if the worker does not sleep well during the day, a significant sleep debt will have built up by around 3am.

After the night shift the worker goes home, maybe has something to eat, and then tries to sleep. However the worker has trouble sleeping as his brain is receiving light signals from his optical nerve which is sensing light in the room. These light signals go to the supra chiasmic nucleus (SCN) in the brain, which sends a signal to the pineal gland stopping it from producing melatonin, so it is more difficult for him to sleep.

In addition his body temperature is rising, so even though he has a large sleep debt, and feels tired, it is difficult to sleep. He needs sleep but the functions of his body and external cues (called zeitgebers to sleep researchers - zeitgebers is german for timers) are out of sync with each other.

Eventually he falls asleep and a few hours later a car horn outside wakes him up. It takes him a while to realize that it is now 3pm and he should get up. Shortening the sleeping time like this usually causes less of the sleep time to be stage 3 and 4 non-REM sleep, and REM sleep. A higher percentage of time is spent in stage 1 and 2 sleep.

When the worker goes back to work the next night, by 3am he is again feeling tired, and if it was quiet may fall asleep because he has a large sleep debt and the level of adenosine in his body is high. Typically he will drink caffeine and will not feel so tired as the caffeine has blocked the adenosine receptors in his brain.

Next we will look at the effect of alcohol on sleep.

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