h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Your entry is amusing, but it fails to mention a substantial body of research which indicates that shift work may be associated with some serious health risks. A quick search of the literature turned up the following, just for openers (from Science News Magazine):

1. Registered subscribers only: Second cancer type linked to shift work (7/5/2003)
Women who have worked at least a few nights a month for many years appear to face a somewhat increased risk of colorectal cancer.

2. Registered subscribers only: Graveyard Shift: Prostate cancer linked to rotating work schedule (9/23/2006)
Men who alternate between daytime and nighttime shifts on their jobs have triple the normal rate of prostate cancer, according to a Japanese nationwide study.

3. Registered subscribers only: Cancer risk linked to night shifts (11/17/2001)
Women who work the graveyard shift increase their chance of developing breast cancer, perhaps because of chronic suppression of melatonin.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of relevant information, but is given merely as an example of what's available if you care to go looking. Although Science News archives are fully searchable only by subscribers, I suspect similar items can be found elsewhere.

Thanks for the information J! I think...

(scared to go back to work)

Know what you mean; hence, the old saying: ignorance is bliss!

From my experience (5 years in the Casino trade) and my father's experience ( around 40 years in the electric power industry) the major problems are in eating, and having regular meal breaks with standard food.

Luckily I mainly worked 21:00 to 06:00, but still found easting peppered steak at 00:00 induced chronic heartburn. However my father who worked various shifts of days (09:00 to 15:00), evenings (14:00 to 22:00) or nights, (21:00 to 10:00) caused major stomach problems including ulcers through eating rich food at different times each week.

From my perspective the main advantages were that, as I worked either 13:30 to 21:00, 21:00 to 06:00 or 13:30 to 06:00, with an hour's break between 21:00 and 22:00, 5 days a week, I had two free days, as well as either a day off or an evening off. This meant I could finish work at 06:00, have a couple of s and crash until 13:00 and have the rest of the day free, or stay up until 12:00 and then crash. If it was an evening finish, then it was the pub, and if before days off, then shoot off to wherever straight after work, at 06:00. First coach to london 06:30.

I had so much free time I didn't know what to do with it, and living on the coast meant I could be a tanned Adonis while everyone elese was slaving while the sun shone.

Except for the visits to the pub which meant I never became an Adonis

Good entry though. Makes me realise how much I miss shift work, and why I still sleep in shift patterns, and am still up at 02:08 (GMT) after a gig and still wide awake despite work today!



Didn't mean to hijack your thread!

Another problem (not strictly a health risk) is that after nearly 11 years of working permanent nights (mon-fri so i get a long weekend every week) is that i have become nocturnal. I struggle to sleep at weekends and find myself still awake and alert into the small hours which leads to me sleeping untill noon, which pleases the wife, not.

The one advantage is when we go on holiday (vacation) to the States, everyone else suffers jet lag but due to the time difference i am actualy on my normal sleep pattern so feel fine

Col.