Managing 24/7: Common traits of successful shiftworkers

Managing 24/7

Hiring shiftworkers? Look for these common traits of successful shiftworkers


Success in any operation begins with having the right people for the job. Do you know what type of person is the best fit for your shiftwork operation? Here are
some of the common attributes that many successful shiftworkers share:

1. Commit to the shiftwork lifestyle.   A personal commitment to shiftwork is the most important factor affecting a person’s ability to work shifts.  Key to this commitment is a willingness to schedule one’s life — and one’s sleep habits — around a nontraditional work schedule.  

During hiring interviews, ask people if they have worked shiftwork before and, if so, how they handled it.  Look for signs that the person has developed strategies for handling a nontraditional work schedule — for example, setting up a dark and soundproof place for day sleep or eating a healthy diet to minimize digestive problems.

2. Have a support network.  Having people in their lives who understand and accept their schedules gives shiftworkers an edge.  Shiftworkers whose spouses and children respect their need for daytime sleep and recognize that they cannot always attend important events fare well in the long run.  Friends are also important; someone who can rely on friends to go out with or talk to on the phone is less likely to develop negative feelings about being a shiftworker.

While you have legal constraints on what you can ask about a person’s private life during a job interview, you should be able to elicit some basic information from job seekers that indicate whether they have a support network available to them.

3. Are “night owl” types.  While most people are comfortable waking up between 7 and 9 a.m. and going to bed around 11 p.m. or midnight, certain people are extreme morning or evening types.  “Owls” love to sleep into the late morning and can stay awake and alert past 2 or 3 a.m., while “larks” rise as early as 4 or 5 a.m. and feel sleepy by 8 or 9 p.m. Research has shown that owls have an easier time adapting to night shift work than do larks.  

4. Exercise.  The benefits of exercise are especially relevant to shiftworkers: reduced risk for heart disease, increased stamina and improved sleep.  Studies suggest people who exercise daily fall asleep faster and sleep better than those who don’t.

While your shiftworkers need not all be marathon runners, it does help if they at least get some exercise.  Someone who merely takes a brisk 20-minute walk every other day is likely to adapt better to a rotating schedule than a true couch potato.

5. Not have inflexible obligations outside work.  Hobbies not tied to precise times of day are ideal for shiftworkers.  For example, athletic shiftworkers can arrange to jog or play tennis with friends at varying times but would be frustrated if they signed up for a softball league and had to miss every other game.

Bottom Line: While there are factors that might make someone a more natural fit for shiftwork, it’s also critical for companies to provide training and educational materials to new hires on how to manage a shiftwork lifestyle. After all much of what determines who is a successful shiftworker comes down to developing good habits that can be learned (e.g. making sleep a priority, creating a good sleep environment, eating the right food at night).

You might be surprised, but sometimes the difference between someone quitting after one month on the job and staying for twenty-years is getting the right information about shiftwork when they are hired.

Next Steps: We encourage you to check-out the various training and educational materials CIRCADIAN® offers:

•    Live training on Managing a Shiftwork Lifestyle – This on-site training program provides critical information in the form of practical, ready-to-use advice and examples.

•    Working Nights™ Newsletter – Monthly newsletter filled with tips and ideas to maximize the benefits of Working Nights (view free sample).

•    Working Nights™ Health & Safety Guide – This easy-to-read guide helps workers better adapt to the demands of shiftwork.

•    Fatigue Training Online – The premier online fatigue management training program for the 24/7 workforce.

Managing 24/7: Shiftwork and Divorce - CIRCADIAN

Managing 24/7

Shift Work & Divorce: Do shift workers have higher divorce rates?


At some point in your career, you’ve probably heard someone lament that the divorce rate for shift workers is double or triple the rate for dayworkers.

If you’re acquainted with an employee on the night shift who’s on his fourth marriage, this may have confirmed in your mind what you had heard — even though you could probably find a dayworker with a similarly troubled marital history.

Does scientific research support the common belief that shiftwork multiplies the chance of divorce? In reality, little research has been done on shift work’s effect on marriage. In this article, we’ll take a look at three studies that looked at shift work and divorce and report what they found.

Study 1 – Moderate Increased Risk of Divorce

In a study published in 1990, Lynn White, a sociologist at the University of Nebraska, found that shift work raised the likelihood of divorce from 7% to 11% — a moderate increased risk of 57%. She offered two theories on why shift work increased the likelihood of divorce:

First, it may “reduce the barriers” to divorce by “encouraging more independent lifestyles and reducing spouses’ psychological dependence on one another.”

Second, it may “increase alternative attractions” by introducing shift workers to a “nighttime community that is less committed to conventional lifestyles.”

When interviewed by CIRCADIAN in the 1990s, White told us her results showed that “shift work is associated with very general decreases in marital quality.” But she cautioned that the results may have been skewed because “people whose marriages are already drifting apart may be more likely to choose shiftwork.”

White’s study was based on telephone interviews with 1,700 married men and women.
In addition to the finding on the divorce rate, the study also found that shift workers scored somewhat lower on ratings in five key areas:

Marital happiness. This aspect of the study asked questions about people’s happiness with aspects of their marriage such as companionship, love, and taking care of things around the house, as well as respondents’ rating of their own marriage as compared to others and their estimation of whether their marriage was getting better or worse.

Number of disagreements. Respondents were asked about how often they argued over housework, how often they had serious quarrels, and whether arguments ever escalated into violence.

Marital problems. Questions asked in this part of the study were designed to measure the extent to which a spouse’s behavior created difficulties in the marriage, based on such issues  as being domineering or critical or having irritating habits.

Sexual problems. The study also examined the respondents’ level of satisfaction with their sexual relationship and their spouse’s faithfulness, as well as whether or not jealousy was a problem helped

Child-related problems. Questions in this part of the study focused on whether or not the respondent thought the division of child care responsibilities was fair and whether children irritated the shift worker when he or she stayed home during the day.

Among her other findings:

•    The likelihood of divorce wasn’t significantly affected by whether it was the husband or the wife who was the shift worker.

•    In cases where one or both partners became shift workers, there was a significant increase in the number of disagreements.

•    When neither spouse had a shift work schedule, child-related problems were greatly alleviated.

In terms of its validity, White’s study had positive and negative aspects. On the plus side, it mathematically controlled for factors such as the respondent’s education, race, age, number of children, years married, and family income. On the down side, there was no strict definition of what defined a person as a shiftworker; respondents were merely asked whether their jobs involved shiftwork.

The study, “The Effect of Shift Work on the Quality and Stability of Marital Relations,” appeared in the Journal of Marriage and the Family in May, 1990.

Study 2 –Increase in Divorce…But Not for All Shift Workers

 In her book Working in a 24/7 Economy (Russell Sage Foundation, 2003), University of Maryland sociologist Harriet Presser took a comprehensive look at how different factors influence divorce and separation rates for shift workers. In her examination, she used data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) from 1987-1988 and 1992-1994.

Some of her key findings:

Overall divorce/separation rates: Millions of American couples include a spouse who works late or rotating hours. Presser found that, in general, such couples experienced a higher separation and divorce rates than those with spouses working only fixed daytime jobs, although there were exceptions:

Couples with no children or with children aged 19 or older. Presser found that there is no increased risk of divorce for shift workers who didn’t have any children or have children that are 19 and older.

However, for shift work couples with children under 19-years old, the risk of divorce increased up to six times when one of the spouses worked between midnight and 8 a.m. as compared to daytime hours.

When both people work. Among couples that included a spouse working shiftwork, she found that dual-earner couples (both work) had higher separation and divorce rates than single-earner couples, provided the single earner was the husband.

When one person works. Increased divorce/separation risk was dependent on who worked. A marriage in which the single earner was the wife working shift work was associated with an increased risk of divorce. However, when it was the husband who working shift work, there was no increased risk of divorce.

Study 3 – No Significant Increased Risk of Divorce 

In a 2009 study published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Radford University psychologists Shawn McCoy and Michael Aamodt investigated whether or not police officers had a higher rate divorce/separation rates than people working in other occupations. As part of their study, they also took a look at how shiftwork, overtime, and weekend work impacted divorce rates.

To conduct the study, they examined data from a 2000 U.S. Census report called the “2000 People and Housing One Percent Sample Census Survey.” This data contained 449 occupations and listed the employees’ current (2000) marital status. From the data, the researchers were able to develop a formula to calculate the percentage of people in each occupation that had been divorced or separated:

The idea that divorce rates are unusually high for law enforcement workers is unfounded. In fact, the divorce/separation rates for law enforcement occupations (14.47%) were lower than the national average (16.96%).

Shift work and weekend work did not lead to a significant increase in divorce/separation rates. As part of the data analysis, the researchers rated each of the occupations according to the extent to which it involved shift work, overtime, and weekend work. They hypothesized that these factors would be sources of occupational stress and lead to increased divorce rates. However, they found that none of these variables had a significant impact on divorce rates.

The study, “A Comparison of Law Enforcement Divorce Rates with Those of Other Occupations” was published online in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology on October 20, 2009.

Next Steps:

Managing 24/7: Shiftwork and Marriage: 10 Tips Married Shiftworkers

Managing 24/7

Shiftwork and Marriage:

10 Tips to Maintain a Healthy Marriage on a Shiftwork Schedule


Here are some ideas to help you and your spouse successfully juggle the often competing demands of shift work and marriage:

1. Take advantage of the good aspects to your schedule.   There likely will be times - such as when you’re working on a Friday or a Saturday night – when it feels like you married your work schedule instead of your spouse. In those moments, it’s important to recognize that every work schedule (day, evening, night, rotating, etc.) has its pros and cons for relationships.

Make an effort to take advantage of the good aspects of your schedule to help your relationship. For example, some work schedules, such as many that use 10- or 12-hour shifts, include regular breaks of three or more days. With advance planning, you can use these breaks to plan special events and trips with your spouse. This can be a great way to recharge the marriage battery.

2. Share schedule information.  The key for all relationships is to maintain the lines of communication with your spouse. For starters, make sure your spouse knows your work schedule and is kept well-informed of changes and overtime.  For example, many shiftworkers keep a calendar in the kitchen and record their work schedule on it (the Working Nights Calendar even includes scheduling stickers for this purpose).  And if you’re facing a major schedule change — going from 8-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts, for example — be sure to have a serious discussion about the effect this will have on your relationship.

3. Address problems head on.  When you work at night, there’s a tendency to ignore minor annoyances at home.  But trivial matters — getting your car’s oil changed or fixing a broken window — can quickly grow into major irritants if you incorrectly assume your partner will take care of them.  Keeping the lines of communication open, and even meeting at a designated time each week, can help you address issues before they become problems.  

4. Phone home.  Like in the movie E.T., it is a good idea to get in the habit of calling home. Many spouses find this reassuring, especially if you get into the habit of calling at the same time every night that you work.

5. Allow time for a recovery day.  A spouse’s expectations that you will do things together on off days can be a major source of stress. If you work between four and seven straight night shifts, plan for at least one full day of recovery during which your body can readjust to a daytime schedule. Plan major events or family outings for days when you’re likely to be rested and in a good mood.

6. Take advantage of free daytime hours.  If distance permits, even something as small as meeting for lunch during your spouse’s lunch hour can give you a little time together. If you spouse’s schedule allows him or her some free time during the day, even better.

7. Get to know other night workers.  Making an effort to develop friendships with other people who work nights can pay big dividends. Your spouse will have someone to talk with who shares the same challenges, and you may be able to work out child care arrangements together.

8. Share experiences.  Even when your free time and your spouse’s occur on the opposite ends of the day, the sense that you are sharing the same experiences can be gratifying. Try reading a book or seeing a movie that your partner enjoyed recently. Or collaborate on a home improvement project that you can take turns working on.

9. Try to Schedule a Regular Date Night.  Having a date night every month or so with your spouse gives you both something to look forward to. Plus, it provides time to focus on just the two of you without the competing demands of children and work.

10. Communication is the key.  All of these tips are made better by good communication between partners. Keeping your spouse and family in the loop will make it easier for all of them to appreciate and accept the unusual demands of your job. And if your family supports you, it makes everything in life easier.

Note: This article was adapted from the Working Nights Newsletter – CIRCADIAN’s monthly wellness promotion and lifestyle training newsletter written specifically for shiftworkers and their families. Download a free sample of the newsletter by clicking here.

CIRCADIAN also encourages companies to allow spouses and partners to attend shiftwork training classes. Offering families such opportunities can be a great way to help a spouse better understand the demands of the job and be more supportive at home.

Next Steps: We encourage you to check-out the various training and educational materials CIRCADIAN® offers:

•    Live training on Managing a Shiftwork Lifestyle – This on-site training program provides critical information in the form of practical, ready-to-use advice and examples.

•    Working Nights™ Newsletter – Monthly newsletter filled with tips and ideas to maximize the benefits of Working Nights (view free sample).

•    Working Nights™ Health & Safety Guide – This easy-to-read guide helps workers better adapt to the demands of shiftwork.

•    Fatigue Training Online – The premier online fatigue management training program for the 24/7 workforce.

Managing 24/7: Shiftwork and Seasonal Affective Disorder

Managing 24/7

Shiftwork & Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Workers who miss morning sun face an elevated risk for winter depression

As winter approaches, now is the time to raise awareness among shiftworkers about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) — one of the few 24-hour health issues that may actually be more of a problem for employees when they’re on the day shift than the night shift.

SAD is a form of depression triggered by lack of sunlight.  An estimated 15% to 20% of the overall population experience SAD to some extent, with perhaps 5% suffering it so severely that they cannot function normally.  These percentages are believed to be much higher at northern latitudes.

Because SAD can seriously affect a shiftworker’s attitude and performance, you should have an understanding of its symptoms and treatments.  (At the bottom of the article, tips for avoiding SAD are provided that you can share with your workforce.)

SAD Symptoms

Although SAD is most prevalent in January and February, it can affect people in the Northern Hemisphere anytime from October to May.  Symptoms include:

  • Feelings of fatigue, anxiety, emptiness, sadness, irritability
  • Reduced energy level and physical activity
  • Exaggerated self-blame or guilt
  • Withdrawal from social interactions
  • Overeating and weight gain
  • Craving for carbohydrates and sweets
  • Excessive sleeping
  • Worsening of premenstrual symptoms among women
  • Decreased sex drive


It’s important to recognize that SAD is more than just a case of the blahs.  The National Mental Health Association formally defines a SAD sufferer as one who experiences the above symptoms in three different years, at least two of them consecutively.

SAD’s Causes

Although lack of sunlight triggers SAD, its precise cause hasn’t been conclusively determined.  There are several theories, all related to circadian rhythms — fluctuations in body functions such as heart rate, blood pressure and production of hormones that, under normal circumstances, adhere to a 24-hour pattern.

Circadian rhythms are largely influenced by the daily cycle of sunlight and darkness, so it’s not surprising that most researchers believe SAD’s origins are due to disruptions of the biological clock.

One theory is that for SAD sufferers, lack of sunlight causes circadian rhythms to go out of synch with each other — a phenomenon known as “internal desynchronization.”
A related hypothesis is that circadian rhythms stay in tune with each other, but go out of synch with the individual’s living schedule.   SAD may be a response to being forced to wake up hours before one’s body is ready.

A final theory is that SAD is the result of changes in key circadian rhythms — specifically the hormones melatonin and the neurotransmitter serotonin.  Lack of light increases production of melatonin and decreases serotonin, both of which influence mood.  For SAD sufferers’ craving for carbohydrates and sweets — which stimulate production of serotonin — it may be a subconscious attempt to naturally regain the proper balance of these substances.

SAD & Shiftwork

No research has focused on whether shiftworkers are more or less likely than the general population to experience SAD.  However, some studies suggest shiftworkers are at a higher risk for depression and anxiety, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they suffered higher than normal rates of SAD.  It’s possible that the frequent shifts in circadian rhythms prompted by shift changes make shiftworkers more susceptible to SAD.

Factors such as shift length, the shift changeover time and the number of consecutive days worked would seem to raise an individual’s risk of suffering SAD.

For example, if the shift changeover is 7:30 a.m. or earlier, workers on the day shift are likely to arrive and leave work in darkness if they’re working 12-hour shifts or 8s with overtime.

On the night shift, workers who have the ability to get a lot of daytime sleep would seem to be at highest risk.  With an early shift changeover, they may get home and into bed before the sun rises and end up sleeping through all the daylight hours.

Treatment Options

SAD is most commonly treated with bright light therapy.  Some people respond well to the simple act of exposing themselves to more direct sunlight.  As a first step, shiftworkers who think they’re susceptible to SAD should make sure they take advantage of opportunities to get sun — on breaks at work and after waking up at home.  Even when it’s overcast, sunlight has a strong effect on synchronizing circadian rhythms.

People with more serious cases of SAD often require specially-timed doses of artificial light, which are typically administered through a light box — a commercially manufactured device with fluorescent bulbs.  The person sits in front of the box for 15 minutes to an hour.  A related therapy is the light visor — a device worn on the head with built-in bright lights.

A small percentage of patients suffer side effects from bright light therapy.  These may include headaches, eyestrain and, in rare cases, a switch to an overactive, overenergized state.

Even though light boxes are available without a prescription, individuals suffering from SAD should consult a doctor before trying the treatment because the precise timing and dose of any SAD treatment is critical.  Physicians specializing in sleep disorders are well-suited to treat SAD because they can tailor treatment to the individual shiftworker’s daily “sleep/wake” schedule.

Tips for Overcoming SAD

  • If you know from past winters that you’re susceptible to SAD, pay close attention to your mood and energy level once summer ends.
  • In September and October, plan events from November through April that you can look forward to.
  • Develop an exercise routine that you can maintain through the winter months.
  • Take advantage of as many opportunities for social interaction as possible.
  • Avoid overindulging in alcohol, which can worsen SAD symptoms.
  • Once you’ve finished your longest sleep block of the day, expose yourself to as much natural sunlight as you can.
  • Don’t linger in bed when you’re done sleeping.
  • Avoid making major life decisions in the midst of a bout with SAD because judgment may be impaired.
  • Don’t be ashamed if you feel yourself sinking into depression. Instead, seek professional help.


Next Steps:

•    Live training on Managing a Shiftwork Lifestyle – This on-site training program provides critical information in the form of practical, ready-to-use advice and examples.

•    Working Nights™ Newsletter – Monthly newsletter filled with tips and ideas to maximize the benefits of Working Nights (view free sample).

•    Working Nights™ Health & Safety Guide – This easy-to-read guide helps workers better adapt to the demands of shiftwork.

•    Fatigue Training Online – The premier online fatigue management training program for the 24/7 workforce.

Interested in Shiftwork, Scheduling & Fatigue Risk Management Best Practices?

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