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Hard Core, Die-Hard Night Shifters

By Kate Loving Shenk

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 27Oct2008 Word count: 816 Viewed: 120 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

The October 6, 2008 Nursing Spectrum Magazine has a great fear inducing headline. It reads: "Cancer Risk On The Night Shift" with a white cup filled with coffee directly below the headline. The coffee looks cold, which certainly would be true to life for those who have to answer a call light the moment they pour that long awaited steaming cup.

The headline is followed by these words: "Experts say it's too early to panic."

Cancer risk; Panic; not exactly positive images for the grave yard shift worker.

The words grave yard shift derive from two separate sources.

The first references the 19th century problem of burying people who were still alive, but in a deep coma, perhaps. A bell was placed in the coffin to enable the waking supposed corpse to notify the grave yard attendants of their new-found life. Those attendants worked the grave yard at night, thus earning a title we still enjoy to this day.

The other story references the eery quiet that often settles over the world between 3-am. This quiet may be likened to the hush of the grave yard at night. Not to mention the feeling that creeps over the people who must stay awake during these hours: an altered state, a strange lethargy when sounds go rolling through your body with a thunderous pitch, acting more like a drug than any legal or illegal drug on the black market.

But I digress.

The author of the article, Catherine Spader, RN, cites the most recent scientific research to back up the questionable higher cancer rates for those (of us) who work the grave yard shift.

Circadian rhythms are disturbed because artificial light exposure at night suppresses Melatonin production in the Pineal gland in the brain during periods of darkness.

Melatonin is considered to inhibit cancer growth and is produced at night when people are sleeping.

Vitamin D deficiency is also found to be a factor in tumor formation due to lack of sun exposure since night shift workers sleep during the day.

Then there is the reality of sleep deprivation that we, the die-hard night shifters, endure and even adapt to. And a stable night shift schedule is far preferable, as far as the body's ability to adapt, than a swing shift schedule, studies show.

My own experience of working a day shift schedule defies the Vitamin D theory. For instance, I used to work in the basement of a hospital delivering care to the indigent. I remember working throughout the winter months and entering our self-imposed dungeon in the dark, and finally emerging from the bowels to go home, after the sun had set.

We all would try and get out at lunch, in fact, I forced my self to do so, but the reality of sunshine was minimal, at best.

Now, in my present work situation, in Labor and Delivery, blinds are pulled to protect the modesty of our patients, by their choice.

A perfect view of the sunrise can be enjoyed in what is called Nursery 2. Our hospital is presently in the throes of a building expansion. Recently, I admitted a baby to nursery 2 and noticed extensive construction out the windows.

I said, " Oh no!! Don't tell me the beautiful sunrise will no longer be visible out these windows."

And everyone there sadly nodded, "Yes."

This doesn't effect us on night shift because we happily leave the hospital to the new day and into the rising sun.

I limit my night work to three days and recover the other four.

Day shift is not conducive to my schedule of writing, blogging and outdoor activities.

Nor is it conducive to my love of night and the great freedom from unsmiling administrators.

So given the fact I love the night shift, a day schedule would be disappointing and depressing. Furthermore, I get more sunlight working nights than I would by working days.

The attitude I have about working days is more of a set up for cancer. The joy and boundless feeling of freedom I derive from working nights is a prescription for good health and a boosting of the immune system.

The article does not discuss a person's attitude toward the shift they work, as I have just done.

Attitude and belief is at least as important as scientific explanations.

Catherine Spader states that melatonin supplementation is not recommended because no one knows what the long term effects will be.

Other cancer prevention life style changes are wise to embrace such as eating healthy organic foods, daily exercise, quitting smoking and getting regular physical exams.

If you hate night shift and buy into the negative beliefs and fears about working nights, or you just feel unhealthy, then by all means, go on to working days.

And leave the grave yard silence of the night to those of us who love it.

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