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A coffee and catnap keep you sharp on the nightshift, study suggests:
Lead researcher, Dr Stephanie Centofanti from UniSA Online and the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at UniSA says the finding could help counteract the kind of sleep inertia that is experienced by many shiftworkers.
[...] "A 'caffeine-nap' (or 'caff-nap') could be a viable alternative -- by drinking a coffee before taking a nap, shiftworkers can gain the benefits of a 20-30-minute nap then the perk of the caffeine when they wake. It's a win-win."
The small pilot study tested the impact of 200 mg of caffeine (equivalent to 1-2 regular cups of coffee) consumed by participants just before a 3.30am 30-minute nap, comparing results with a group that took a placebo.
Participants taking a 'caffeine-nap' showed marked improvements in both performance and alertness, indicating the potential of a 'caffeine-nap' to counteract sleep grogginess.
Journal Reference:
Stephanie Centofanti, Siobhan Banks, et al.A pilot study investigating the impact of a caffeine-nap on alertness during a simulated night shift, Chronobiology International (DOI: 10.1080/07420528.2020.1804922)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:12PM (17 children)
Look around the country and find me a single boss who will allow me to take a 20 minute nap during my night-time job because that boosts my performance.
Hint:
Any night job is more or less "be there to make sure no shit is happening" ... all the really qualified work is already happening during the day, and will stay there, and rightfully so.
So we're doing nights with as few people as possible. I.e.: if you sleep for half an hour, someone needs to cover! But only for half an hour.
What do you think? Is your boss going to hire (going to find!) someone from 3:00-3:30 ... or is he just going to tell you "I don't need you fully awake, your job is only half human already!"
Because you can bet your ass he isn't going to hire a complete second person for a job he'd rather see done by a cheap machine!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:21PM (2 children)
You don't own a mirror?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Adam on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:37PM (1 child)
I told my boss the guy in the mirror was covering for me, but apparently he was asleep too.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:29PM
Down side of the boss being the guy in the mirror is he's a slave-driving dickhead.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:34PM (3 children)
There's a lot of things that go on during the night where alertness is important. Most of the bullshit jobs happen during the hours of 9 to 5. For example everything on Wall Street and in the banking industry happens during those hours. You're deluding yourself if you think what they do is in any way, shape or form important. I have more respect for the various criminals roaming the streets at night than I do for the criminals that work in banking and high finance.
I think you're likely to find that society changes rather drastically if the night jobs were eliminated. Much of the work is stuff that you just take for granted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:53PM (2 children)
So that's why the night-time bosses are going to allow their workers a 20 minute nap?
And we're not really talking about the fact that's it's suprisingly hard to be wide awake for half a shift (at night, no less) and then go to sleep for 20 minutes ...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:22PM
Truckers carry extra large thermoses of coffee for a reason. It's not so much the caffeine keeping you awake ( you develop a tolerance to caffeine after a while ) as your bladder.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:27PM
Nap noob. I can nap after an Adderall, a pot and a half of coffee, and only having been awake for five hours.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:59PM (5 children)
Pretty much what AC said about bosses. Our company is so dead-set against sleep, that there is a policy against sleeping in your car in the parking lot, or nodding off during lunch break. If your eyes are closed for more than 1/4 minute, you're suspected of sleeping. A full minute confirms the suspicion. "Get your sleep during the day, and be alert when you arrive at work!"
Yeah, right. Younger adults especially, who have kids at home? Forget about a good sleep during the day. Even I have my difficulties getting rest during the day, and I have no young children in the house!
I'll disagree with AC about qualified personnel on the night shifts. Whatever metrics are used to measure production, we out perform 1st and 2nd shift, most of the time. In fact, the metrics are changed from time to time, because 1st shift needs to find the metric at which they excel. It still hasn't happened in the fifteen years I've been here. Sometimes, they'll beat our production numbers, but they never "excel".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @05:58PM (3 children)
This is oftentimes the case. It's in part a byproduct of the attitude that everybody needs to work 40 hours a week in order to justify their existence, even though studies regularly confirm that there's only about half that much work being done in typical offices. a 20-30 hour workweek would likely result in just as much work being done in those companies.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 30 2020, @10:43PM (1 child)
Note: not all the work (that the society needs) happens in the offices.</pedantic>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @07:56AM
Pedantic²: AC never said that office work is all our society needs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @12:43PM
Maybe. But what I bet would happen is that a 20-30 hour workweek would then cause about 10-20 hours of productive work to occur, and the subsequent necessity to hire twice the number of workers to actually get everything done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:39PM
See? There's the proof, right there!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @05:34PM (1 child)
My previous boss let me nap all I want on-the-job, as long as he wasn't aware of it.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:04PM
When I was the boss on a graveyard shift, I went out of my way to not be aware of it. I didn't run around trying to catch the guys who worked under my supervision napping, because that would have required me to stay awake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:06PM
If you're in the "Work from Home" class, your boss will probably don't ask don't tell. After all, your salary is likely highly subsidized by the Trump administration.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @12:36PM
Plenty of industries where that's not really the case, even if more and variegated work happens during the day. Plenty of other industries are globally distributed and sometimes meetings have to occur in the dead of night where you are. And yet other jobs one places serious upgrades and acceptance testing during the dead of night to minimize disruptions to the day customers and employees. That's more actual serious work than usually goes on during the day. You must have just had a really limited work life.
And while there are many jobs that would not permit the above, if your job has a half-hour meal period that doesn't have to be stood 'on-duty' there's nothing permitting you from doing that yourself. The job I'm starting next month is night shift, but unfortunately the lunch period is of the type where one must indeed continue to monitor for shit happening.
The interesting part of the story is wondering why that would be any different from day shift. Why couldn't you do that with your lunch hour and ramp up into the afternoon?
That said, when I used to have caffeine before bed I get really fucked up dreams. Now I only do caffeine when I need an actual extra boost over and above my usual workload.