Greetings,
I'm interested in the supposed effects of operating on unusual
sleep schedules, generally, working throughout the night and sleeping
throughout the day, with variations occurring with some frequency.
I'm also interested in any currently available methods of dealing with
these effects.
As I understand it, melatonin is responsible for the reset of
the biological clock and is released during the night. I've
frequently been told that when you are forced to operate on night
hours, the best way to ward off sleepiness is to work in a low or no
light environment, as this triggers the release of melatonin. Is this
generally true and are there safer and more useful ways to sustain
well-being during these conditions?
As far as I can tell, the general symptoms of this behavior
are depression, fatigue, and anxiety. I'm interested as to if anyone
has any knowledge of the long term effect of this behavior on one's
general health and longevity, as well as ways to counter any possible
effects.
Further, are there any technologies in development that are
feasible tools to reduce the general amount of sleep required by an
individual?
Thanks,
-- (tomw@quantium.org)|(tdw@acm.org)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:14:48 MDT