Free Running in Tech: The Circadian Rhythm
Welcome to the “Insomnia in the Tech Industry” series! If you’re a professional in the tech industry with trouble sleeping, you’re in the right place.
During this series I’ll be sharing stories from a variety of tech workers who’ve been in your shoes, as well as info from other industry professionals like Health Tech CEOs, Psychiatrists, Sleep Specialists, and Sleep Researchers. Together we’re disabling the firewall that protects this topic to discover why sleep is so elusive, what factors in tech industry culture contribute to insomnia, and what you can do to create your own sleep algorithm.
Working in Multiple Time Zones
“It’s always easy to fall asleep in the afternoon, just never at night.”
Arjun, a Senior Marketing and Business Development Manager based in India at Infosys, a prominent information technology and consulting company, doesn’t follow a typical 9 to 5 work schedule. "I work with people across the globe. I start around 10AM working with people in Australia and New Zealand which is four-ish hours ahead of me, then take a break before starting with Europe during their daytime hours, flour-ish hours behind me. I’ll take another break during my evening time in India, then start again around 7PM working with the US who just started their day, 12 hours behind me.”
He describes himself as a very ambitious workaholic, who’s been struggling with insomnia for years. “At night it’s almost impossible to fall asleep. I feel sleepy, get into bed, and while my wife is asleep in 20 minutes I’m awake for two hours, and it just keeps going and going. Then I wake up all groggy in the morning and I can't start my day well”.
Arjun tries anything he can to help sleep come, whether that’s hoping the tv will lull him to sleep, or late night eating in an attempt to increase drowsiness. Then to combat his fatigue during the day he enjoys an afternoon nap. “Because I fall asleep so late at night, I love an afternoon nap. It’s always easy to fall asleep in the afternoon, just never at night.”
The Biological Clock
To understand what’s happening with Arjun’s sleep, we need to learn a bit about the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm, or body clock, is one of the biological processes that naturally regulates your sleep. It tells you when to feel sleepy and when to feel alert and it does its job very effectively, as long as your behavior supports it. The body clock is primarily driven by light exposure (e.g. sunlight) and timed/routine behaviors like eating and movement.
When you get up at the same time every day and open the blinds or leave the house to head to work, you’re exposing your body clock to light and routine. This communicates to the brain, “it’s morning, time to be alert!” and an alerting signal gets sent out to the rest of the body.
Once it gets dark out and your body hasn’t noticed light in a few hours, this communicates to the brain “it’s night, time to get sleepy” and the alerting signal decreases. This signal is supported by routine behaviors like meal times. Eating three meals around the same time each day is like giving your body clock some checkpoints, telling it it’s on track, like when a cuckoo clock chimes. This is called “entraining” your circadian rhythm.
What might happen if you sleep at irregular hours like a daytime nap, or eat a big meal in the middle of the night? Your body clock gets very confused about what time of day it is, and it’s not sure when or how strongly to send the alerting signal out. Add on working from home which limits light exposure and it’s no surprise that your body clock has given up telling you to get sleepy at night because it doesn’t trust that it’s actually nighttime.
Shifting Your Circadian Rhythm
“The tech industry, because it requires you to go outside so little, can induce the same physiological changes as Antarctica in the winter.”
Olivia Walch, PhD, CEO at Arcascope, a digital health startup, and Adjunct Researcher at University of Michigan, sees this frequently in shift workers. She calls the circadian rhythm “free running”, meaning that it’s no longer synced to the 24 hour day, but shifts later and later each day.
“Something we saw, especially in the pandemic, was that people were free running, drifting later and later and later. You could see it start after social distancing. I think the tech industry, because it requires you to go outside so little, can induce the same physiological changes as Antarctica in the winter where you just don't have a strong entraining signal and therefore your circadian rhythm drifts later and later."
Flexible Schedules
In the previous article, “Sleepless in Tech: Does Working in Tech Cause Insomnia?”, we met Ken, a senior graphics engineer who lives with Circadian Rhythm Sleep-Wake Disorder (CRSWD), delayed sleep phase type. Ken really benefits from the flexible work hours that are common in tech jobs, since he gets his best sleep from 2AM - 10AM. However, this flexibility doesn’t work so well for Arjun who doesn’t have a firm start and end time due to working in so many time zones.
Olivia also noticed this drawback of typical tech industry working hours, “I think the flexibility of tech can be a downside. For some, a morning alarm clock and consistent wake time helps them entrain their circadian rhythm, it's good for them. By not requiring that consistent morning start time as a perk of the job, the tech field can end up being a negative for people who need to lock onto some kind of schedule."
Most people, like Ariel, an infrastructure designer in electrical engineering, sleep much better with a consistent wake time and exposure to bright light to support their circadian rhythm. He originally used an alarm clock to wake him up, then switched to bedroom lights he could schedule to slowly brighten at a certain time in the morning.
"It was actually really nice.” He says, “I found myself waking up more naturally, and sometimes my body would wake up on its own, like ‘it's like 8:30, we're expecting the light’ and that felt good. At some point I realized I was waking up without it so I don't even set it anymore.”
What Can YOU Do to Strengthen Your Circadian Rhythm?
The first thing I recommend to people struggling with insomnia is usually not what they want to hear, but here it is:
Get up at the same time each day, even on the weekends!
I know, I know. Not fun.
But how can you expect your body to trust you about what time it is when you keep giving it false indicators. What time would YOU think it is if your cuckoo clock started chiming at 1:15, then 2:45, then 3:07, rather than always chiming on the hour?
You never know, once your body clock trusts you again you might be like Ariel and actually wake up feeling pretty good, even at 8:30AM on a Saturday.
If you’re ready to sleep better click below to schedule a free consultation.
If these stories connect with you, stay tuned for future articles on topics like #personality #perfectionism #introversion #COVID #pandemic #hyperfocus #gaming and much more. Subscribe below to be notified when new articles are released!
