CBD, melatonin and shift work
An irregular work schedule, when you have to deal with a new regime every week, puts a lot of strain on the body. After a while, a person becomes numb and gets used to it, but the negative impact on natural processes in the body cannot be overlooked. Can CBD help?
Night shifts are detrimental to sleep
Anyone who has ever worked a shift knows how challenging it is to adjust your daily schedule and find a balance between work and rest. It is extremely important that you sleep for at least seven hours, have as few disturbing elements around you as possible, such as street noise or daylight, and let your body regenerate. It is not true that the need for sleep decreases with increasing age . Most shift workers divide their rest into two parts. But this only exacerbates the problem of sleeping in daylight. Humans are biologically adapted to sleep at night , when the homeostatic sleep drive (it also occurs during the day) and the circadian rhythm overwhelms you. Keeping these two processes in balance is difficult even under "normal operation". This is then almost impossible when working in shifts. Therefore, people often turn to various dietary supplements or, more recently, CBD, which can help not only improve sleep, but also relieve the pain of exhaustion and lack of rest, thus speeding up the path to healthy sleep habits.
Circadian rhythm
It is a biological process with a repetition period of about 24 hours that tells the body when it is time to change functions such as body temperature, hormone levels or mental clarity. It is influenced by external stimuli such as the environment or just daylight. Therefore, if you go to bed in the morning after a night shift, the circadian rhythm becomes unbalanced and sleep is not natural for him at that time.
Homeostatic pressure on sleep
This drive could be described as a desire to sleep. The homeostatic system exerts pressure on the body and tries to force it to go to sleep. If you increase the time you are awake, the pressure increases , while it decreases during sleep.
There's only one way to prepare for the imbalances you'll face every night shift. If you start work on a Sunday evening, you must change the schedule at least two days in advance. On Friday, instead of the usual eleven, go to bed an hour after midnight and sleep until nine, on Saturday go to bed around three and stay asleep until eleven. In this way, you will get used to daylight while sleeping and awake at night, and the body will not experience such a shock on the first working day with a night shift (and the following ones) .
Thanks to this trick, you will "trick" the circadian rhythm and the homeostatic sleep drive. You will not get rid of fatigue and the feeling of poor quality sleep during the day, but you may feel a slight improvement. Even little things that most people don't even pay attention to and consider ridiculous have a positive influence. They work and in combination with the shift of the convenience store are definitely worth a try .
- Sunglasses - put them on at work and take them off at home so that you don't expose your body to the full force of daylight and throw off its rhythms
- Blue light – avoid the phone and TV after leaving work, go straight to bed
- A dark environment - blackout curtains, outdoor blinds and an eye mask will help you fall asleep faster and create the impression of night
- Cooperation - all your loved ones should respect your sleep pattern and not disturb you, because only as a rest you will be able to devote yourself to them and be at full strength
- Coffee - the average half-life of caffeine in the body is five hours, so to ensure quality sleep, drink it during the night shift at one o'clock in the morning
- From work to bed - be like "robots" and go to sleep immediately after coming home from work. Avoid activities that would wake you up. The homeostatic pressure for sleep should decrease as quickly as possible and the circadian rhythm will follow suit.
reset your homeostatic sleep drive (sleep pressure) when you work night shifts , which can make it easier for you to change your circadian rhythm. These two control processes are closely linked.
CBD with melatonin
Cannabidiol is the subject of a lot of research and the list of its possible effects on the human body is constantly being extended. Sleep support is one of the biggest draws for most users. CBD can help induce more restful sleep and strengthen the REM phase , alleviate psychological problems, reduce anxiety and reduce chronic pain. Cannabidiol acts directly on insomnia and associated complications that block smooth sleep.
Melatonin is a hormone involved in the regulation of sleep cycles. If you work in shifts, it is constantly "in action". It appears in large quantities in infants and, in cooperation with growth hormone, ensures the proper development of the child. Gradually, however, its share in the body decreases and around the age of sixties it is almost at zero . It is possible that a person causes such a significant reduction to himself by sleeping irregularly and convincing the body that he does not need much sleep. Fortunately, melatonin can be supplemented with selected foods such as tofu, almonds, beetroot, poppy seeds, yeast, tomatoes or bananas.
A combination of CBD oil and melatonin may be the best possible choice for sleep support. They do not interfere with each other, and during shift work, when the body has to cope with the time shift, they keep internal processes such as the circadian rhythm and the homeostatic sleep drive in balance.
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