Overload is what's killing us..

The recent study about graveyard shift & cancer, should not be all that surprising..

WE evolve slowly...very slowly..

We were made to be alert in daylight hours and rest/sleep when it got dark..

We overcame the night with electricity and of course our lives changed..but our bodies' inner-workings did not..


Our food changed and we did not..our level of activity changed and we did not.

Our stimuli changed dramatically, but we did not..

Only a little more than 100 years ago, people had NONE of the things we live with and swear by.. They got up with the sun, worked a manual labor job, ate heartily and burned it off..and then they slept when it got dark..

We are hopelessly out of tune with nature and our own bodies, so is it any wonder why people are allergic to peanuts now, and drive around in their wakeful sleep..and have diabetes, and are overweight and have heart disease??

we were not designed to be 24-7 organisms, and the changes in our lives are killing us.. No big surprise to me..

best thing I ever did for my health and sanity was quit. All that time, I never slept right, never felt right. I always felt run-down. I will never take another night shift job again. Not to mention I almost bought it several times on my long drive home, when I would nod off at the wheel and wake up to find myself in the other lane or almost off the road.

I never sleep more than 45 minutes to an hour at a clip..and when I wake up, it;s a few hours before I get tired enough to doze again..

I had a 1 1/2 hour commute each way and I had to be at work at 4:45 AM..and I am a "night person" so I would just stay up..and then nap at noon when I got home, but then I had to pick kids up after school at 2:30..so you know the drill ..no sleep..

and I almost drove into a train one morning.. If the guy next to me had not honked, I would have driven right into it..

and I still stay up late, but I absolutely must get shut-eye at some point during the night anymore--morning and daytime "makeup" sleep does nothing beneficial for me at all. You are right, our bodies are on a natural rhythm that must not be tampered with. Speaking of picking up kids from school--I was home sleeping one day, getting my big whopping four hours in after my third shift in a row, and I was so exhausted I totally slept through the alarm to go pick up my kids at 3 pm, and ended up waking to the phone ringing from the school secretary somewhere around 4:30 or so (they'd also left several panicked messages--apparently I slept through the phone calls too!). I felt absolutely terrible.

I don't know if gigging with bands professionally and semi-pro has anything to do with it, but I have always been more acclimated to being up at night and sleeping in the day. I was promoted from a second shift operator's job into a daytime management gig 2 1/2 years ago and I still feel like I should be a night owl....maybe I'm just strange.

and he does just fine--with a little help nowadays from melatonin.

theres a corridor of high cancers rates, last I read it was 20 some percent higher than the national average
It looks to be where I can see that the fallout of pollution would settle in our predominate downwind direction of our local industrial park. Anyways if you can un'nerstand that;-)

I recently switched hours to graveyard. If someone posted a study and you have a link you remember, I'd be most obliged.

Graveyard Shift Work Linked to Cancer

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/0-0&fp=475052404bd46c0e&ei=SUFQR-SxMpHQ-wHfnP3VCg&url=http%3A//ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gvT38ZaUMA7BR989pxROFXwJI9JgD8T7KKNO1&cid=1124214707&sig2=KJAjLlgCggDOa5QvqlAhig
The Associated Press - 17 hours ago
LONDON (AP) — Like UV rays and diesel exhaust fumes, working the graveyard shift will soon be listed as a "probable" cause of cancer. ...
WHO Says Graveyard Shift Could Lead To Cancer NY1
all 519 news articles »

I only did it because I'm saving up for the flying Taser!O8)

Have no fear! Strategic thinking will help you pull through okay. In college we had combatting sleep deprivation down to a science.

Exercise, especially aerobic exercise, triggers all sorts of processes in your body that improve your sleep. If you're drowsy a jog will let you stay alert for another couple of hours.

Your big dangers are going to be overcaffeination and overdoing the simple carbs. Caffeine taxes your adrenal gland and eventually you'll walk around exhausted all the time, susceptible to unhappy withdrawal headaches. The carbs turn to sugar which in high doses causes cataclysmic, life-shortening reactions throughout your body.

Watch your diet, maybe take a multivitamin, and look into something called 5-HTP, it is a natural substance that converts to seratonin in your body so you can sleep more soundly. You take it as you go to bed.

Good luck
Crikkett

However, it is very likely that during a large portion of human history -- including the lengthy scavenger phase and parts of the hunting & gathering phases -- that our ancestors worked the night shift.

in the cave.. :)

Human eyes were not designed for night-time prowling ":scared:

Our ancestors did not have to hunt on a daily (or nightly) schedule. Hence, the moon phases allowed human beings to hunt quite well in the nighttime.

Maybe mother nature was trying to tell us something... "That noise you hear, and those glowing orbs out there are gonna eat you"..

interesting to consider how our brain's hardwiring, which really hasn't changed that much since we left the savanna, influences how we process our modern environment. I've walked the streets of American cities from coast to coast, and have always experienced some degree of discomfort, especially at night. In the rural setting where I live, I do not often have that -- although there is definitely a heightened awareness of "sound" in the darkness. A tiny field mouse can sound pretty large in the dark, when it rustles dry leaves.

My nearest neighbor is a hunter. Like most hunters, he gets out well before the sun comes up, as the rising sun provides hunters with the greatest benefits. He recently told me about going on a walk on a moonless night, and suddenly realizing he was in the area where there were several coyotes. He said that he has never felt any anxiety in the woods before, but that he felt a sense fear for a few minutes. He had a gun, and knew he was able to get up in a tree. But his brain was flashing another signal.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119791/

Of course no murder case in reali...I did almost die on the drive home though falling asleep.

either at camp or in field exercises.

Scientists think the lack of melatonin (a natural anti-oxidant) may be part of the problem..

We are now a 24/7 society where even at night there are lights outdoors to keep some sort of illusion of daykight .

I have never bee a morning person and stayed up late but I still went by the night as a time to sleep .

I tried once to do a night shift but I could not sleep during the day and it affected me in many ways .

Up until the late 60's as I recall with my failing memory stores closed by 9pm by the latest and sundays most stores were closed and people all slept at night other than certain jobs that were mostly hospitals and firemen and police and of course the never ending workers cleaning buildings .

People are killing themselves and are driven by corps to do so , the never ending 24/7 clock of death .

and nothing was open on Sundays..not even grocery stores.

Hours were 9-5 and banks were 8-3.. Everyone managed to support families on one income, working in these stores & businesses, and amazingly, the people all managed to clothe themselves and the families had food..and they did not need to shop at midnight to do it all..

A guy who sold shoes at the department store in town, was able to buy a new car every now and then, buy a house his family could afford..they were able to go on vacations, and take the kids to the dentist.. all from selling ladies' shoes..

Hospital visiting hours were over at 8PM, and they literally turned off most of the lights.. a few "skeleton crew" nurses manned the floors & a doctor or two were "on call" but were asleep in the doctor's quarters most of the time..

There were not even TVs in the rooms back them.. The philosophy was to let the patients REST and recuperate..

There was some "nightlife", but it was rfeserved for the "entertainment" sector..movies , bars & restaurants, but even they were all closed up by midnight.. So even the night people eventually had to go home at midnight and sleep it off..and they had 8 hours to do it in....radio stations signed off early, there was nothing on TV, but the Indian test pattern, and no VCRS or TIVO to tempt us to stay up late..

The only thing I recall being open until 9 was sears but it was so long ago I could be wrong on that . Nothing was open sundays not even gas stations and even those closed at perhaps 6pm .

People got through it just fine because it was the way of life then . I don't recall anyone complaining things were closed early or on sundays .

Moat people we knew made a good life with a small hardware store or a barber shop or even a hobby shop .

Those days are gone forever now thanks to greed and making the public believe it was better through hype .

But since the 1950s, the number of chemical, nutritional, and environmental assaults inflicted on us has steadily risen to the point that our immune systems are unable to fend off the accumulative impact of this onslaught.

I worked a graveyard shift for an airline at LAX. 10 pm - 6 am. Of course there weren't many flights going out after the redeyes so I basically chatted with the homeless people who lived in the terminal and got the occasional nutter who wanted to buy a ticket to heaven.

That shift was soul-deadening and health-destroying. I could never sleep. I'd get a few minutes of sleep and then be wide awake, and this pattern would cycle all day. Jackasses phoning during the day broke up the little sleep I did get. I never knew when to sleep on my days off. If I dared sleep through the night on a day off I paid for it the entire following week. It was wretched.

When I almost ran my car off the side of the 405 because I was dozing off after a two-day marathon of not being able to sleep I quit. I did that crap for almost a year and it almost killed me.

shopping at 3:00 a.m. and until 11:00 p.m. Christmas at Halloween and Carols that go on for over two months. My whole damned biological clock is screwed up...and this computer is killing me yes and making me an addict.

No wonder we are all :crazy: AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Seriously...I know your post was serious. Think about our Medical Staffs who have to deal with this There needs to be more rotation. Most can't do graveyard shifts for long periods without serious consequences. Workers health and safety is at a very low ebb with the gutting of the Dems and Supply Side Economics.

and probably as entertaining:)