Staying alert and safe on the night shift not only affects workers’ health, but the health and safety of the people around them.
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Taking a power nap on a night shift can leave you feeling groggy. And eating a large meal can reduce your alertness. So, what's a tired shift worker to do to make it through the night?
Their hormones mean they still need zzz’s even when they’re already supposed to be in homeroom.
Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock.com
Teenagers aren't just lazy. Their sleep hormones aren't calibrated to let them get up and go until later in the morning – which has academic and health consequences when school starts too early.
Innocent people do confess to terrible crimes they had nothing to do with. Psychologists are investigating factors that contribute to false confession – including how well-rested a suspect feels.
Not dark enough.
People in bed via www.shutterstock.com.
Is electricity making us sleep less? A new study on sleep in preindustrial societies suggests the answer is no. But it misses a big point: people in preindustrial societies spend more time in darkness than we do.
I recently wrote about the terrible sleep habits of the characters in House of Cards. I disapproved of Frank Underwood’s late-night computer work in the Oval Office, his new midnight iPad gaming habit…
Light from electronic devices can alter the quality of sleep our quality.
Alexander Rentsch/Flickr
While many of these devices, especially e-readers, seem harmless enough, the light they emit may affect our sleep patterns and leave us feeling tired the next day.
It’s only an hour. What difference could it make?
Image of alarm clock and woman via www.shutterstock.com
Shifting the clocks ahead by an hour can't have that much of an effect on us, right? According to the experts, losing those 60 precious minutes of sleep can really hurt.
Ruler of the free world (but not of his own pineal gland).
Netflix
Imogen Rehm, Swinburne University of Technology; Hailey Meaklim, Swinburne University of Technology, and Jo Abbott, Swinburne University of Technology
We all have a poor night’s sleep from time to time: those nights when you lie awake for hours trying desperately to go to sleep but can’t stop worrying about tomorrow. Or when you repeatedly wake up throughout…
The best way to keep your hand off the snooze button is to have a regular sleep schedule every day of the week.
Bethan/Flickr
It’s 6.30am and after a long holiday break, your alarm clock is insistently telling you it’s time to get out of bed. For many people – me included – the automatic reaction is to hit the snooze button…
Babies can learn to self settle through controlled crying.
Yoshihide Nomura/Flickr
Every evening, parents across Australia hope their babies will sleep through the night. Many won’t. That’s where controlled comforting, or controlled crying might help. Contrary to some claims, this is…
The National Sleep Foundation has done a great job terrifying citizens since the 1990s with its annual Sleep in America poll results. In 2005, 60% of adult drivers in the US reported that they’d driven…
There are effective non-drug options for treating insomnia.
Alyssa L. Miller
We’ve known for a long time that hypnotic drugs are not good to take for more than one to three weeks because they are habit-forming and increase the risk of accidents. And there’s now a growing body of…
Michael J. Decker, PhD, RN, RRT, Diplomate American Board of Sleep Medicine Associate Professor, Nursing, Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University
