Up All Night

Three experts are discussing the danger of the night shift.

One says, “Evidence begins to suggest that the adverse effect of night shift on health is worse than
what the gloomiest pessimists are inclined to believe. Studies show that working late will increase
the risk of heart attacks, type-2 diabetes and cancer. When I was a resident doctor, I directly felt
such impact because all the night shifts were imposed on interns. Some of my colleagues were not
bothered by this at all, but the exhaustion pained me and I realized that I could not stay conscious
behind the wheel on my way home. There is a misunderstanding about night workers: they are the
security of solitude, patrolling buildings engulfed by endless darkness. In most cases, nothing
deviates more from the truth than this. Night workers have companions, but night shifts are still
painful for causing health problems. Employers must find ways to help them, letting them work in
the day after a limited number of consecutive night shifts.”

The second says, “When most people rest or go out for lunch during work, they are immediately
reconnected with the world. However, night workers feel disconnected with the whole universe:
most of their working time is spent in a parallel world, where almost everyone around them is
sleeping and dreaming. For some people, such universe is ideal, but many are troubled by the
sense of loss. Frankly speaking, they do: they miss out on those small human interactions which
make our daily life pleasant or at least bearable. Work without human interactions has detrimental
effects on one’s psychological health, the most common diseases being depression, insomnia and
neurolysis. However, because this is their job, in most cases they cannot quit even when it makes
them suffer. They simply can’t afford being unemployed. Interesting enough, the internet is proved
to be the good news to night workers: with supporters and chat rooms, they can encounter people
sharing similar ideas. They start to think that they are not lonely.”

The third says, “Some people always believe that night shifts are not good for you, but data on the
severity of its impact from various research programs have stunned the medical community. The
deleterious consequences are unavoidable, because it happens in our deep genes. 6% of our genes
have very accurate small clocks, which means that they turn on and off at specific times of a day.
Once you start working all night, such great balance will be broken, and over 97% of the clock
genes will lose all senses of time. This explains jet lag, and why crossing time zones affects
adversely our body and mental system. We usually say that our biological clock is inconsistent
with the time that we experience, but the reality is way more complicated. We have many
biological clocks, every one of them running at different times. Night shifts —— or even worse,
working round the clock, for instance, working for three days and nights in a row —— you are
basically suffering permanent jet lag, tearing yourself apart on the molecular level.”