The Glade 4.0

A friend heard some sort of radio spot for this "condition" and brought my attention to it.

Shift Work Sleep Disorder This is a wikipedia link to the condition, so take it for what it is worth.

I can only ask this...

**** really? When will these **** people just die? Why must everything come down to some sort of condition that must be treated? For the love of all that is holy, it is called life. If you are having this much of a hard time with it, there is only one cure. Not being alive.

I mean people have had nocturnal schedules for a lot longer than this "condition" has existed. Want to know what the big difference is between now and before now... men and women have become whining little p*****s that deserve contempt and scorn, nothing more.

As for thelast section of the wiki, regarding medications that promote daytime sleep... I have a $20.00 to $100 dollar solution: Gorram Blackout Curtains. Not hypnosis, not drugs, a **** set of curtains to keep the light away from the eyes.

I hate people, I hate their excuses, and I hate their conditions.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Sounds like somebody could use a nap.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Yeah, because ignoring real problems and just telling people to man up is always the answer...

This isn't a real problem.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

It's actually a condition that is the result of industrialization.

It results from the inability to suppress pineal melatonin levels during the day. This is because we do not live outdoors in daylight like our bodies are adapted to. I posted a pretty thorough explanation of how this works and how it's related to dreaming a while back. It is based on the mechanics of the ganglion in the retina which directly instructs to pineal gland to produce or suppress melatonin levels.

There's much more to it than removing daylight from our eyes when sleeping. The most important part is having daylight in our eyes when we're awake. Without it, pineal melatonin levels aren't suppressed during waking hours and aren't available for production during sleep, resulting in sleep which doesn't actually restore the body.

In fact, melatonin is such an important regulator of cell function, the lack of a proper circadian cycle probably has more of an affect on health than we even realize. For one, pineal melatonin levels cause problems with digestions leading to malabsorption of minerals such as zinc and iron as well as tryptophan, the precursor to both melatonin and serotonin. So it becomes a self-feedback mechanism which exacerbates itself. Serotonin is a mood regulator and abnormally low levels are associated with many mental diseases such as clinical depression. This could be an explanation for things such as winter blues and increased rates of mental disease at higher latitudes.

Additionally, melatonin regulates cell division. This could be an important function, without which, leads to the development of many diseases related to irregular cell growth patterns. In fact, there have been studies which provide us with anecdotal evidence that could show a possible correlation between cancer and circadian regularity. I'll try to find a study, but I know there was one done which found a higher prevalence of breast cancer among night shift working women than day shift women.

This condition is actually a lot more tangible and affects more people than you think. It probably even affects you. Most people probably just don't have it diagnosed pathologically.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Uh huh. Forcing your body to regularly do things that it's not designed to do has implications. For some people, more than others. Just because some people are able to do night shift work without much difficulty doesn't mean that everyone can.

Just because not everyone gets cancer from smoking, doesn't mean that there isn't direct causation there for others.

I'm sure you found this in connection with the recent incidents of air traffic controllers falling asleep at work. The issue is not so much the fact that it's a night shift, it's that they were scheduled for several consecutive shifts with only 8 or 9 hours between them. Something like 6pm-2am, then 11am-7pm, then 4pm-12am. That's a night shift, then a day shift, then a night shift, and with only 8 hours in between you'll be lucky to get 5 hours of sleep. You'd find it extremely difficult to stay awake on such a schedule, too.

Also, the people who think the solution to every problem in the universe is "manning up" are just as retarded as those who blame all their problems on everybody else.

The mind is a weird thing. When I was young I did rotating shifts and had a blast, for the first year. Then it started driving me batty and I went on a straight graveyard shift. I used DS's solution beck then, blacked out my window with tinfoil, slept a lot better.

Manning up is an answer in some things. It doesn't always work and doesn't work for everyone.

And yes, the topic is a real problem. I've got it backwards, can't sleep at night, can sleep easily during the day.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

This is real. Rafael did a great job of explaining the basics of the physiology.

Younger people tolerate this much better than older people. It's part of the effects I noted in the discussion on insomnia. So Micheal's story is to be expected.

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

It exists. I know. I worked 8 years of shift work and it still affects me some 10 years later.

People who mock stuff like this are ignorant and/or have never done shift work for any length of time. I've met one person who it affected little, but then again he slept on the job.

Yup, real. Worked two years of night shifts (11p - 6a). Started off great (Hey, alone at work!), wore on me terribly after nine months or so. Had to finally say "Look, move me to another shift or I've got to quit; I can't take this anymore."

This is like saying, "Doc, hit hurts when I slam my face on the desk".

Of course it's disruptive. This doesn't require extensive medical studies or expensive drugs to fix.

If you have a difficult time working shifts, find a different job.

I spent 20 years in the Air Force working odd shifts, and on deployments. Then I spent the better part of the next eight years carrying an on-call phone 24x7. I finally got to the point where it took too long to recover from all nighters and shift work (in my mid-40's mind you), so took a position that is mostly M-F 9-5 with very little after hours work.

As long as I stay active, eat sensibly, and am smart about making sure I'm ready for bed at bedtime, I don't have much trouble sleeping 6-7 hours a night, and wake up feeling generally rested....

The odd shift hours may have had some affect on me long term (I'm definitely not what you would call a "Morning Person"), but other external factors have a much greater impact on my ability to sleep (stimulants like caffiene, sleeping in on weekends, taking naps, etc...).

SWSD is a subset of circadian irregular disorders. There are disorders where the subject might experience an onset of greatest sleep at different times of the day (other than the ideal 11pm-4am timeframe), which as I detailed above, is controlled by our biological clock in the form of pineal melatonin. It's worth noting that these disorders are not neurological as in the case of narcoleptics who also have near 100% expression of cataplexic symptoms.

The most disruptive pattern are those who have a 25 hour clock. Every day, they have to sleep later and later each day to be restful. This disorder can be crippling when it comes to functioning on a normal schedule. These are no less pathological disorders than glandular weight retention diseases. While most of those diagnosed with disorder are affected to a degree which is treatable, there are some who aren't.

I agree, people who don't have the ability to work shift shouldn't generally avoid these types of jobs. However, forcing a person to change shifts enough is enough to throw the circadian cycle into complete disarray. Our ability to sleep (and actually rest while sleeping) is control by powerful chemicals excreted by glands directly linked to sunlight. This is how the human body evolved. It evolved around daylight because our most keen sight (eyesight) only works well during the day. Hence the reason that the ganglion in the retina is controls the pineal gland.

This would seem to indicate that in our industrialized modern world, everyone should be suffering from sleep disorders. Hardly anyone is out in the sunlight all day, every single day. But I have a suspicion that there are other manifestations of this problem. Perhaps permanently suppressed pineal melatonin levels which could lead to greater susceptibility to a wide host of diseases, particularly those which involved irregular cell growth patterns since melatonin is a critically important moderator of cell growth (cell division). It undoubtedly is a co-contributor in the cases of clinical mental disorders such as depression.

I can say with great certainty that if you gave me a two week control over your environment, I could have almost anyone suffering from absolutely restless sleep and either doping themselves on large quantities of stimulants during the day or suffering terrible mental performance.

edit: I am curious as to any research done in the area of aboriginal cultures that are undeveloped and the prevalence to disease which doesn't originate from a foreign infectious agents (bacterial, viral or protozoan), particularly cancer and autoimmune diseases. These cultures eat food not affected by industrialized agriculture (greatly affects the mineral/nutrient content of diet) and are forced to have circadian cycles tuned completely to the sun, something modern man cannot achieve very easily. They are vulnerable to foreign agents, certainly. But the very nature of cancer suggests that it is ultimately caused by a myriad of contributors all of which would be hard to isolate because they are likely a fundamental part of industrialized life. While a healthy body shouldn't be so sensitive to new stimuli, our ability to change our environment is many magnitudes faster than our ability to evolve.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

It is not a matter of manning up. It is a matter of stop saying that he natural course of life requires drugs to get through.

It is a fact of life, you work nights you must do extra **** to make it work. Stop being a **** waste and medicating yourself for every god damned thing life throws at you.

I hate working nights; it sucks. We all know it sucks. This is NOT a new thing. Drink some coffee... don't like coffee; eat an apple. But taking drugs? Bullshit, plain and simple.

Working nights has never been awesome. I, personally cannot do it. I have tried, I failed miserably. I stopped trying. Why? Because it **** sucks.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I'm going to invent that thing to let me reach through the internet and punch people, I **** swear.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Gotta say, I agree with DS on this one.

They take little stuff we deal with in life, put a label on it, and make a drug for it. Even if you have a desk job and sit 8 hours a day, they come up with Sore Backside Syndrome and market a drug for it.

"Do you have SBS? You're not alone. Millions of Americans suffer from SBS. SBS is a serious condition. Now you don't have to suffer in silence. Talk to your doctor about Assitol."

There's one industry that gains from putting cutesy little acronyms on everyday stuff and selling drugs to cure it. I'll let you guess who that is.

Anyway, second and third shift suck. Yeah, I'll agree to that. I used to work 8am to 12am. My old man has worked second and third shift as long as I can remember. You deal with it, or you stop doing it. You don't start whining and try to get insurance to give you cash. I don't get the whole victim mindset where people are looking to be put in a special group and treated differently.

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DS, let me see if I get your point. Your objection to this is not that this is not a disorder, but you object to people drugging themselves (beyond mild over the counter drugs) to deal with it. Is that correct?

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

A scientologist would agree that you should not use psychiatric drugs.

It sounds more like he's saying "well, duh, it's hard to sleep during daylight hours. It's not a disorder; it's just the way people are put together" and that offering a drug for it is making people think they're ill when really they're just working under tough conditions.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's not your fault that you're tired, it's a symptom and you need a drug

It's not your fault you're not happy, it's a symptom and you need a drug

It's not your fault you can't sit still in class, it's a symptom and you need a drug

It's not your fault you're overweight, it's a symptom and you need a drug

Add it all up, you find you're a victim, there's something wrong with you ... unless, of course, you take your drugs.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I think that's a really good way of wording it.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Except that understanding (as has been show in this thread) is incomplete at best. It's not just that it's a tough condition, it's that prolonged exposure to this kind of scenario can actually screw up your system and create problems long after you've stopped going through those tough conditions.

Which doesn't change the fact that the cause of that is not a disorder; it's the human body not being designed to be awake all night.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This is genius. I dealt with a lot of people who felt this way. The classic was the 50+ year old who came in complaining that they were stiff and sore in the mornings, and it resolved after about 10 minutes or with stretching. They did not want to hear that this is normal. They wanted a drug to 'fix' it.

*edit to correct homonym

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

Well we ask the human body to do all sorts of things its not DESIGNED to do.

Do you take ibuprofen because you're sore from playing basketball (or whatever recreational activity you engage in)? Do you take drugs to be able to handle bone-crushing pain without screaming?
Do you take an antacid when you ate something your body isn't designed to eat that gave you heartburn? Heck, your body wasn't designed to live past about 40. I'm willing to bet you'll take drugs to treat the ravages of old age.

Stop drawing arbitrary lines and screaming when people go over them. We use drugs modern medicine to enhance and surpass the limitations of being a member of homo sapiens.