Over and over again, I’ve heard shift workers say something like the following: “I have no rhythms.” “It’s just a constant experience of bleh.” “I get off shift, and more than tired, I just feel… flat.” “Ah,” I think when I hear this. “The amplitudes of their circadian rhythms have been squashed.” To steal an […]
Imagine you’re on a swing on a playground with a friend standing behind you. This friend is not a jerk, so they’re going to push you when a normal person would push you on a swing—right when you’re at the end of your backwards motion and ready to start moving forward again. They, like a […]
Back by popular demand, here is part two of the “We Rate Sleep Memes” blog series. If you’re just now tuning in (check out part one here), the title pretty much says it all. We take sleep-related memes we find online, we use them as an excuse to talk about sleep and circadian science, and […]
So you want to help shift workers feel better—sleep better, be safer, have fewer of the long term chronic health problems that go hand in hand with shift work. How do you do it? Where do you start? As some of the most circadian-wrecked people around, shift workers have been the topic of no small […]
My friend sent this to me the other day: “If I go to bed at 10:30 pm, I often wake up at 4:30 or 5:30 am and can’t go back to sleep. But if I go to bed at 1:00 am, I fall asleep easily and can sleep until 9:00 am. Throughout the work week […]
One of the things we’re interested in as scientists is what longitudinal, large-scale data collection can tell us about sleep. Along those lines, one of our research projects involves looking at how models of circadian rhythms, as well as different sleep regularity metrics, can help us understand different outcomes for different folks. And as part […]
NOOOOOO!!!! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! (To hear our actual stance on permanent DST, check out this blog post. Short version: we love getting rid of the seasonal time change, as long as we end up on permanent standard time, not permanent DST.)
The first thing I want to say about naps is that I’m almost always for them. Naps can help you recover from sleep deprivation. Naps are good. But let’s talk about that almost always. When might you want to avoid napping? Well, maybe you’re trying to shift your personal time zone and are at a […]
Why do you go to sleep when you do? Sure, there’s a big part of it that’s physical: You go to sleep because you’re sleepy. But you might also stay awake, even when you’re on the verge of collapsing from fatigue, because you have work to get done. Or because your neighbor is practicing a […]
Here’s a fun fact: You probably get way less light exposure during a normal work day than you would if you were out camping. “Sure,” you say. “That’s no surprise. At home, I have walls around me to block the sun. If I’m camping, I presumably have fewer walls.” “You don’t understand,” I say, leaning […]
