SLEEP SECRETS FOR SHIFT WORKERS & PEOPLE WITH OFF-BEAT SCHEDULES

SLEEP SECRETS FOR SHIFT WORKERS & PEOPLE WITH OFF-BEAT SCHEDULES
David Morgan
Duluth, Minnesota: Whole Person Associates, 1996
163 pages, paperback, $12.95

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

David Morgan has worked as a radar operator in the British Royal Air Force, a deckhand on a Swedish freighter, and a geologist in a Canadian mine. He is not a sleep specialist. The book draws on his personal experience and on library research and interviews.

Morgan prescribes 7 steps for solving shift work sleep problems:

Recognize the problem, as, he warns, it can be lethal.

Analyze the problem and consider if it is one for your doctor.

Fix the easy things first. These include your bed, bedroom, diet, and exercise--some far easier to modify than others.

Take a hard look at the drugs in your life. Sleeping pills, he says, "can be a pact with the devil."

Banish the sleep wreckers in your mind. These include fear of the future and fear of the past.

Manage the special sleep problems of shift work. He includes specific advice for evening shifts, night shifts, and irregular shifts.

Nap and survive.

Morgan's writing style is conversational, but wordy. The most effective and concise part of the book is a 10-page section listing 40 common problems and solutions. If household noise disturbs your sleep, for example, Morgan advises, "Don't rage against noise; organize quiet." He suggests measures such as earplugs and rewards for quiet kids.

Although this book was published in 1996, most of the references date from the 1980s. The reader seeking a practical guide to coping with shift work will find Working the Shift by Colin Shapiro and his colleagues, and Wide Awake at Odd Hours by Torbjörn Åkerstedt, also reviewed this month, far more authoritative and timely.