Zyppah’s Better Sleep, Weekly Newsletter

A: Kyle, nightshift workers may have no difficulties working at nighttime and sleeping during the day. However, many individuals encounter difficulty working nightshifts because they are doing something that the body is not comfortable doing. Some suggestions to improve your body's ability to adjust to working at night include working in a brightly lit environment, wearing dark sunglasses on the way home from work, and sleeping in a cool dark environment during the day. Additionally, some individuals may benefit from sleeping for four hours immediately after getting home from work in the morning followed by another four hour sleep period in the afternoon.

Trish, melatonin is like the start gun for recruiting sleep chemicals to go to sleep but is not involved with sleep itself. Melatonin is helpful when changing time zones. For young, healthy patients, studies show that melatonin does not reliably work. The placebo effect is one of the most common effects in pharmacology. If you feel like melatonin is working for you, it is low risk so feel free to keep taking it.