How to reduce circadian misalignment in rotating shift workers

Charmane I Eastman

doi:10.2147/CPT.S111424

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Editorial

How to reduce circadian misalignment in rotating shift workers

Authors Eastman C

Received 10 May 2016

Accepted for publication 11 May 2016

Published 13 July 2016 Volume 2016:6 Pages 41—46

DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/CPT.S111424

Checked for plagiarism Yes

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Charmane I Eastman

Biological Rhythms Research Laboratory, Behavioral Sciences Department, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA

I have often thought that rapidly rotating shift work schedules that include night shifts should be abolished and replaced with fixed shifts. But maybe I was wrong, I used to think that there is no way to reduce the circadian misalignment between the master internal circadian clock (and thus all the circadian rhythms of the body) and the times for sleeping, working, and eating, because the circadian clock cannot reset (phase shift) fast enough to keep up with rapidly rotating shift work schedules.

Acknowledgments

I thank Dean Mikulla for inspiration. The work cited in this paper was supported by NIH grants R01NR007677, R01HL086934, and R01NS23421 and CDC grant R01 OH003954.

Disclosure

The author reports no conflicts of interest in this work.

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