Why night shift work is hazardous to our health
Diabetes | Suicide | R90 Sleep Cycles
Here’s what we’ll learn in this article:
1. Why do many musicians commit suicide?
2. Is depression caused by sunglasses?
3. Can we really catch up on sleep?
4. How do pro athletes optimize sleep?
5. How does the US Navy manage sleep?
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
“I don’t party. I don’t drink, smoke. or do drugs. I’m straight-edge.” That’s what I’ve been hearing from a lot of teenagers today. Their parents love it, because they don’t have to worry that these children will come home late at night, or get themselves arrested. Their kids are locked away safely in their homes, but they’re not sleeping, or safe. Many of them are being physically and sexually assaulted behind closed doors - not by a relative, but stalked by online predators as they irradiate their vital parts with screens. Not only does wireless technology activate our brain’s opiate receptors1, it also harms fertility by impacting egg and sperm quality.2
Our teenage years are inherently risky by design. This is when we learn how far we can push our boundaries, be vulnerable with other human beings, and embrace failure. Adolescents from other cultures are put through death-defying rites of passage. In America’s electronic prison, helicopter parents have replaced themselves with monitors, giving their children civilized ankle bracelets called cell phones to call home. Dirt has been replaced with chemically-laden AstroTurf. Playgrounds are safe zones where children feel no pain, as comfortably numb wine moms stare off into oblivion.
As evening approaches, families no longer huddle together on the coach to watch Primetime TV, but gaze into the abyss of Amazon Prime alone. Instead of winding down after a long day, many are winding up into the night. Solace becomes soul loss, as there is no quiet, no retreat, and no surrender. Devices ping, Alexa sings, and blue lights flicker and sting. Those of us who zone out or seek quiet are asked “are you okay?” as if we have a mental disease. Maybe we do. It’s called healthitis. We’re so inflamed with health, we can’t tolerate madness.
Many don’t see what their environment is doing to them since they literally don’t have the time. When we expose ourselves to artificial light from our devices, we slowly lose time, as blue light spikes our dopamine, which makes us experience the minutes as if they’re passing by more quickly. If we’re not careful, our flow state can be a slow-drip of digital heroin where we lose track of all reality.
Our circadian clocks are wound and adjusted by the hand of God - his Sun. When we tune our eyes to the false light of our devices, we tune out the real light of salvation. We cast our heads down in submission, praying to a black box that enslaves our future, while seemingly liberating us in the present.
Reality has become perverted, and cycles of time inverted. Men compete in women’s sports and we strive to save the planet by blocking out the Sun. The left has become the right and the right become left. The eagle of One World government needs both wings to fly and gain enough momentum to send us back into an inescapable transhumanist future. The Nazi regime inverted the swastika to represent the Black Sun. Originally the swastika was a positive symbol, representing the clockwise (right) motion of creation. The modern lords of Mordor who own the patents on wireless technology and run the media rob us of precious time by inverting our relationship with light.
Our genetic destiny is directly impacted by light. DNA damage and cancer are repaired when we live in unison with our natural light environment.3 When we live out of sync with the rhythms of light, we go against our bodies’ natural inclination to heal and repair. For instance, wounds tend to heal more quickly during the day than at night. Our bodies’ immune system goes into overdrive at night, repairing damaging from within. Like Jesse Ventura once said: “I don’t have time to bleed.” This is why having a pristine EMF environment is crucial when we sleep, since our bodies’ external shields are down as we go internally to repair.
Saving our musicians
The last thing our immune systems need at night are drugs, alcohol and bright light. This is what Jack Kruse calls “Suicide by Light”4. Dr. Kruse maintains many mainstream musicians commit suicide due to the effects of light on mood. As the photoreceptor melanopsin is destroyed by artificial light in both the eye and skin, this can chronically alter one’s mood and attitude. Contributing to this poor light environment even more is the fact that many in the music world wear sunglasses, probably since they’ve become so sensitive to sunlight as a result of being blue-light toxic. Add in changing time zones, booze, and stadiums full of electromagnetic fields, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Is depression caused by sunglasses?
Sunglasses don’t directly cause mental illness. However, light does directly affect our mood. If you’ve ever gotten SAD during the dark days of winter, you’re familiar with how a lack of sunshine can lead to acute changes in mood. This seasonal effect is compounded by an excess of blue light from technology.
Research has shown that artificial blue light can deplete concentrations of dopamine and melatonin around the skeletal muscle of our pupil. When we’re chronically over-exposed to blue light, the pupils of our eyes become sluggish. As a result, the retinal pathways of our eyes that project to our internal clock, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) are disrupted. Our SCN regulates daily rhythms of nearly all physiology and behavior. When these rhythms are thrown off, this leads to a cascade of health effects.
Recent research on mice, whose hormonal rhythms are similar to humans, has shown that nerve signals to other parts of our brain such as the perihabenular nucleus (PHb) are impeded by blue light, leading to mood changes and depression.5
The good news is we don’t have to wait for these negative changes to occur. We can read our skin as a sign. Screen dermatitis is a form of eczema that appears on the face when we’re overexposed to blue light. Vitiglio, or the loss of pigment, is also a manifestation of a poor light environment. When we don’t receive enough sunlight, we can no longer make enough melanin, a pigment found not only in our skin, but all throughout our body.
“Can we see the evidence of light toxicity in the skin before it afflicts the brain? Yes, we can. People often forget that the skin and brain come from the same tissue layers in the human embryo. Because of this linkage your skin and your eyes tell your decentralized physician to look deeper into your health to see how bad you are afflicted with light toxicity.
We need to go back to the basics with music. It is based upon a fractal organization to timing that is linked to altered dopamine levels in the eye and the frontal lobes linked to the light we abuse. That timing is linked to the human brain's alpha waves on the EEG. When melanopsin is off so is the alpha wave on EEGs. When the alpha wave goes then we can find problems in other waves that signify a sleep disorder. This sleep disorder always precedes sickness, suicide, and death.”
~ Dr. Jack Kruse
Could a poor light environment, coupled with wearing sunglasses, have led to the demise of Michael Jackson? I believe so.
While many of us aren’t rock stars, we still suffer under artificial light - especially those of us who work the night shift. If you’ve walked through a hospital in recent years, particularly during the night shift, have you noticed that many of the nurses and staff tend to be obese? This is no accident. Melanopsin is very sensitive to blue light, and is contained in fat cells called white adipocytes,6 which are scattered through our entire body. A 2020 study by the Journal of Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome found that night shift workers were three times as likely to be obese than day shift workers.7 8
Melanopsin regulates the amount of melatonin our bodies can use, and melatonin drives hormonal production in the rest of our body. Melatonin is not just a sleep hormone. Melatonin alone synchronizes the biological functions of our pancreas, liver, kidney, adrenal glands, heart, lungs, reproductive organs, and digestive tract.
Can I catch up on sleep?
Social jetlag, or sleeping in, also tends to be more prevalent with night shift workers. Waking up later than usual throws our circadian rhythm out of alignment, which can run our fat metabolism off the road. This is why those of us who sleep in consistently tend to have issues with managing weight.9
However, there is a way we can set the scales of sleep back in our favor. Nick Littlehales, the author of “Sleep: The Myth of 8 Hours, the Power of Naps, and the New Plan to Recharge Your Body and Mind” was one of the first in the world of professional sports to suggest sleep as a way to boost athletic performance. Nick has successfully guided the Manchester United soccer team as well as many other sports stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo, on how to maintain healthy sleep habits while globetrotting the world and changing time zones.
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What’s the R90 Technique?
Rather than focusing on getting a solid 7-9 hours each night, Nick suggests focusing on getting thirty five sleep cycles of ninety minutes each week, called the R90 Technique. He recommends getting a minimum of three cycles (4.5 hours) to four cycles (6.5 hours) each night, If you can only get in three cycles, then 30-minute controlled recovery periods (aka naps) are suggested during mid afternoon between 2-5pm. Next time you want to take a nap, tell people you’re doing a controlled recovery period. Rinaldo doesn’t do siestas - he’s a superhuman sleeper, just like you.
I can honestly say that Nick’s method works. Some nights I’ve gone to bed way past my bedtime, but I’ll often sleep more soundly through the night, feeling more rested than I would with a longer, less-quality sleep the night before. I’ve found that by getting up on time each day, I’m able to harness the rhythm, rather than focus on the hours. When it comes to sleep, quality trumps quantity.
Some other tactics Nick recommends (which Bohdanna and I have also applied):
Identify with your genetic Chronotype (a morning or nighttime person). Take the Chronotype Quiz
Sleep in the fetal position on the opposite side to your dominant side on a layered sleeping surface and no pillow under your head, or at least a very shallow one.
For more info, you can check out the in-depth article by Celesté Polley.
How does the US Navy manage sleep?
Thanks to Nikko Kennedy ✨ I recently dove into some research done by the US Navy on how to maintain crew endurance and night shifts that don’t burn out sailors. If anyone can’t have people falling asleep on the job - it’s a captain of a battleship. The Navy designed work and rest schedules that conform to a 24-hour day, known as circadian-based watchbills, allowing individuals to work, eat, and sleep around the same time each day. Researchers with the Navy found that the schedules that lead to optimal warfighting performance are a 6/18 or 3/9 split.10 This means that your night shift would last for six hours, and then you would have eighteen hours to rest, eat, and recover. In the latter example, you would have a three-hour shift, followed by nine hours of recovery, then repeat. Working eight hour shifts or longer is not ideal. Ask your employer if they can break up the shift into smaller segments. Researchers also found that:
Staying awake for 18 hours is the equivalent of a blood alcohol level of 0.05%
Staying awake for 24 hours is equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.10 %, higher than the legal limit for driving in all 50 states
Even if you’re not commandeering a submarine, driving a car can get you into serious trouble if you’re pulling all-nighters. Your judgement is the same as if you’re drunk. You may think “I’m fine, I can drive” when in reality you should probably take a 30-90 minute nap in your office chair.
For all of you who don’t know how to stop, the good news is you don’t need to know how, only when. Trust me - I get it. I’ve been up many late nights (by late, I mean that 9pm is way past my bedtime!) working on the computer, writing blog articles just like this one, but I also have the tools and a solid foundation to fall back upon - like my naps, orange glasses, and switching to dandelion coffee.
While my life isn’t that of a rock star - I’m still connected to something higher than cocaine. I know there’s a concert waiting for us all. Let’s set the stage together.
Instead of holding iPhones that burn our midnight oil, let’s callous our thumbs again with a flick of the bic.
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*We are not licensed medical professionals, and this is not medical advice.
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https://mapcruzin.com/radiofrequency/henry_lai1.htm
https://ehtrust.org/recent-studies-show-wireless-radiation-impacts-fertility/
Zhang, C., Chen, L., Sun, L. et al. BMAL1 collaborates with CLOCK to directly promote DNA double-strand break repair and tumor chemoresistance. Oncogene 42, 967–979 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-023-02603-y
https://www.patreon.com/posts/quantum-4-by-62488346
Martínez-Águila A, Martín-Gil A, Carpena-Torres C, Pastrana C, Carracedo G. Influence of Circadian Rhythm in the Eye: Significance of Melatonin in Glaucoma. Biomolecules. 2021 Feb 24;11(3):340. doi: 10.3390/biom11030340. PMID: 33668357; PMCID: PMC7996162.
Melanopsin and the Intrinsically Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells: Biophysics to Behavior. Neuron. 2019 Oct 23;104(2):205-226. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2019.07.016. PMID: 31647894; PMCID: PMC6944442.
Brum MCB, Dantas Filho FF, Schnorr CC, Bertoletti OA, Bottega GB, da Costa Rodrigues T. Night shift work, short sleep and obesity. Diabetol Metab Syndr. 2020 Feb 10;12:13. doi: 10.1186/s13098-020-0524-9. PMID: 32064002; PMCID: PMC7011518.
Peplonska B, Bukowska A, Sobala W. Association of Rotating Night Shift Work with BMI and Abdominal Obesity among Nurses and Midwives. PLoS One. 2015 Jul 21;10(7):e0133761. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133761. PMID: 26196859; PMCID: PMC4511417.
Arab A, Karimi E, Garaulet M, Scheer FAJL. Social jetlag and obesity: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obes Rev. 2024 Mar;25(3):e13664. doi: 10.1111/obr.13664. Epub 2023 Dec 10. PMID: 38072635.
when I've worked third shift, which is actually my preference but usually hard to obtain, I tend to also get sunlight in addition to the night hours. especially early morning sun.
it does break up my sleep schedule with naps and intermittent rather than consistent long sleeps, but I've not noticed any ill effects.
I am however a 'weirdo,' have been a night owl since even before teenager years, and extensively experimented on my own personal sleep/wake limits in high school and college. I start to experience uncomfortable effects at 4 hours or less of total sleep out of each 24. pushing that edge for multiple days in a row requires a catch-up day with extra rest or I pay the price of exhaustion and low clarity.
I realize that both my lifestyle and physical manifestation don't really match up well with what most people experience, but that in itself encourages me to post 'dissidence' like this even when the original topic is completely valid for the average soul.
Thanks so much for the mention. I appreciate it. Nick’s sleep ways are fascinating to say the least.