Circadian Sleep Sufficiency - a lifeline for night shift workers?
Dr Shelley James - The Light Lady
Inclusive lighting design strategy for health and well-being, keynote speaker, curator, author, WELL Light Advisory Member
You may be waking up to your usual morning routine, but for millions of night shift workers (around 17% of adults worldwide - 2024 Statistics on America's Off-Hour Workforce) - their body clocks may have no idea what time it is.
Night-shift workers are up to three times greater risk of occupational accidents - Shift Work Hazards,?and crashes on their way home, with one study finding 37% near-crashes after 45 minutes at the wheel following a typical night shift - High risk of near-crash driving events following night-shift work.
The obvious answer is that night-shift workers just need longer in bed.
But this team working with nurses in Korea became curious when they spotted some dramatic differences between participants - even when they had spent the same time in bed, some suffered from crippling daytime sleepiness - and the other felt just fine.?Personalized sleep-wake patterns aligned with circadian rhythm relieve daytime sleepiness.
So they decided to take a closer look and came up with a radical new model for optimising sleep efficiency and?a new parameter, Circadian Sleep Sufficiency.?
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This model calculates the timing of sleep episodes to find the intersection between the circadian cycle, which responds to patterns of light and dark, and homeostatic sleep pressure - the natural feeling of fatigue that builds up over the course of the day.?
As you sleep, that homeostatic drive falls away and you naturally move into the ‘wake zone’, where you can wake up without needing an alarm.
This team used actigraphy and mathematical models to create personalised sleep and wake times in real time, effectively optimising the effectiveness of time in bed while reducing sleepiness on the job - or on the way home.
Complementing these tailored profiles with dynamic lighting cycles that improve alertness during work periods and help the body clock to tell the time could help us all to get a refreshing nights’ rest - whenever that may be -?Dynamic lighting schedules to facilitate circadian adaptation to shifted timing of sleep and wake.