Nightshift jobs disturb your 24-hour clock:

Here is how you save your sleep

Are you a nurse, a factory worker, or someone else who works nightshifts? Then you know how difficult it is to sleep properly after work. A natural compound called melatonin may help you sort out that problem.

Normally, when it gets dark out, we humans feel tired and go to bed. This is because our brains release a hormone called melatonin, a substance that induces drowsiness and makes us dose off. Melatonin is what controls our day-and-night rhythm, our 24-hour clock. The release of this hormone is regulated by light. People who work nightshifts, for instance hospital staff and factory workers, have a problem because they are regularly exposed to artificial light at a time where they should ideally be lying in their beds. Their melatonin production gets disrupted and that upsets their bodies’ perception of day and night.

A natural sleeping pill

Many nightshift workers become regular users of sleeping medication because they have problems falling asleep when they get home from the job. What they can do instead of using synthetic drugs is to take a melatonin supplement to mimic the body’s own sleep process.
Even trans-Atlantic flyers who cross several time zones and are affected by jet lag find melatonin supplements useful to get back on track after they reach their destination. It enables them to fall asleep more easily, even though body’s perception of day and night is out of sync.

Protects the body

The suppressed melatonin production is not only a problem for the ability to fall asleep. At night, melatonin scurries through the body, repairing different types of cellular damage that has occurred during the day. This process is a vital part of the body’s defense against disease. Interestingly, nightshift workers seem to have en increased risk of certain cancers and scientists think that this could be because of the disrupted melatonin release.