re: Night Shift Increases Cancer Risk and Beware of Daylight Savings Time

kayoubi — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:23:32 GMT

I work a lot of nights, usually getting into bed anywhere between 4am and 6am, 5 days a week. Here's something interesting I noticed... as well as, as you would expect, always feeling tired and not fully mentally alert, I noticed a profound physical effect from the late nights. My sport is boxing, and although I don't box competitively now, I do still train. Part of that training is sparring, which inevitably involves being punched (although the better you are, the less often you get hit. It's really motivating!). It's not that bad really, you pull your punches when you are sparring (as opposed to boxing in a competitive match), so it doesn't usually hurt or cause injury.

When I am sleeping late, even though I am still sleeping anywhere between 7 and 9 hours a night, I get concussion incredibly easily. A couple of light punches to the head will leave me with that swimmy-headed feeling of mild concussion for the rest of the day. I thought at first maybe it was my age, and that I wasn't as tough as I used to be. Then I had a few weeks where I was sleeping early, and funnily enough I felt no bad after effects of taking a few punches in sparring. Once I was back on the late nights again, the susceptibility to concussion returned.

As a result I am convinced that quality and timing of sleep is very important to brain health. The effects of sleeping later than is natural, even though for the same number of hours, are profound (on me at least). I am certainly looking forward to a lifestyle where I get to bed early and rise early!