Tales from the Graveyard: Shifting Life to Preserving Health and Sanity
For All the Workers Who Only Come Out at Night
It’s 2:30 AM and instead of sleeping in a warm bed you’re staring at a computer screen trying to concentrate on your job. What life decisions led you to this place and time? Can you remember the last time you saw the sun? Who had the sheer audacity to replace your favorite snack in the vending machine with kale chips? As you fight off sleep these are the questions that fill your head as you stare into the abyss and it stares back at you. One thing is certain, however: whether you’re naturally a night-owl, or have to replace your blood with coffee, you’re working the graveyard shift and it’s slowly killing your body.
The human body has a schedule that correlates with the day/night cycle and sleep. Certain glands in your body depend on this schedule to let them know when to squeeze out their hormones into the rest of the body. These hormones govern everything from how much we grow as children to maintaining our immune systems. Pretty much everything depends on the timely release of these chemicals. When we sleep during the day and stay awake at night we throw off our body’s schedule for the normal release of these hormones, creating a state of what scientist call “everything is not working right why is this happening” inside of us.
So what can we do about this? Assuming quitting your night position for a day position is out of the question you’ll have to figure out how to maintain your health while staying on graveyards…well it turns out our friends at the The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) offer some guidance on this subject!
First of all, let’s tackle sleep. You probably sleep during the day and are awake at night…mostly. Should you switch on your days off back to a night sleep schedule? The recommendation is no, sticking to a regular routine of sleep (even on your days off) will be more beneficial as to not confuse your body. Having said that the sleep that you can get is now more valuable than ever and that means good sleep hygiene:
- Turn off the electronics (TV, computer, tablet, etc.) when going to bed
- Don’t eat before sleeping
- Don’t drink alcohol before sleeping
- Set a regular time of day aside consistently for bedtime
- Make your bedroom a sleep-friendly environment (dark, cool, quiet)
- Have a discussion with your healthcare provider before starting any sleep medications.
Doing the 5 things above will vastly improve the quality of the sleep that you can get, but what else can we do? The American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise OR at least 75 minutes of vigorous exercise. Working out regularly when we’re awake can increase not only the quality of sleep that we get but also improve heart health and decrease our risk for problems like diabetes and cancer. NIOSH recommends that if you do exercise to time it at least three hours before the bedtime that you choose for yourself.
Next on the list are sleep disorders. In particular, sleep apnea can decrease the quality of your sleep without you really even knowing it and can have other unfortunate effects such as increasing your blood pressure and your risk for heart attacks. If you suspect that you have sleep apnea (common symptoms include loud snoring, waking up with excessively dry mouth, sore throat after waking up, mood changes) speak with your healthcare provider about options and strategies to improve the quality of your sleep.
Finally, the last point is support. Staying healthy requires support both from friends/family but also from yourself. Set boundaries with the people in your life to not disturb you during your sleep time. Set aside time for yourself on your nights off for your hobbies to let some stress out.
The world doesn’t stop turning at night and the graveyard shift can be stressful. Taking care of yourself requires a multi-directional approach that will require you to rebuild many aspects of your life around your flipped schedule. While not perfect, there are still many things you can do to minimize the impact on your body and live a healthy lifestyle.
