Managing Sleep on a Rotating Work Schedule

How do you carve out sleep consistency when you are a second shift “closer” during the week and a first shift “opener” on the weekends, for example? Just as you start getting used to a closer schedule, your shift changes and you’re opening again. Too much of this and you are likely to develop shift work disorder.

What It Is

Shift work disorder is a medical condition that affects people who work non-traditional schedules. Insomnia-like symptoms characterize it and occur when the person tries to sleep and experiences excessive sleepiness when awake. Most things are planned for the day worker even though more than 22 million Americans work evening, rotating, or on-call shifts. As if trying to fit into a 9 to 5 world on a rotating shift wasn’t hard enough, most shift workers sleep one to four hours fewer than non-shift workers.

Why It’s Used and Who It Affects

Shift work supports 24-hour smooth operations or allows for cross-training in the business world while not overworking their workers. It is commonly used for manufacturing, health care, transportation, retail employees, and hospitality.

Pros and Cons

There are several advantages to shift work. These include increased knowledge of business operations, more available work hours, better work-life balance, increased output productivity, sharing unpopular shifts, sharing skills, employee interaction among shifts, and skill development. Other benefits include being suited to night owls and morning people, easier commutes, and better wages.

There are also disadvantages to shift work. Some working people prefer consistent fixed work schedules and plan their lives around them. Putting these workers on rotating shifts disturbs their lives. There are other downsides. Among these include mental and physical health risks, isolation, lack of human connection, weight gain, insomnia, depression, and anxiety. Others include dangerous driving conditions.

How to Manage

Managing sleep on a rotating shift work schedule is a burden to be shared by management and workers alike. Suggested solutions include a clockwise rotation (day-evening-night) instead of a random pattern. The clockwise rotation allows for no more than three-night shifts in a block, with three days of recuperation after the night shift work. For the most part, eight-hour shifts are better than 12-hour shifts for this method.

Other ways workers can manage a rotating shift work schedule are naps and eating healthy meals instead of fast food and big end-of-shift meals, sleep aides (although not the best long-term solution), stimulants such as caffeinated beverages to stay alert (which interfere with sleep later), melatonin (however, it has not been tested), light therapy, bright, cool workplaces, and cooperation from the family.

The strongest way to cope is by adjusting your sleep before a shift change to prevent extreme disruptions and not delay going to sleep after your shift is over. According to The Sleep Foundation, rotating more frequently every two to three days or so causes fewer circadian disruptions, while rotating less frequently allows you to spend more time in one circadian cycle before you need to adjust again. The longer you put off sleeping, however, the more likely you are to feel awake due to your body’s internal clock.

Shift work is here to stay. It benefits businesses and is manageable for people who work a rotating schedule, but it is not without its challenges and trade-offs. If changing to a fixed work schedule is not an option, preserving sleep and having a supportive family is important for continued success and not impossible. Try a few of these healthier suggestions to supplement adjusting your sleep and find the work-life balance that a rotating schedule is supposed to accommodate.