Rotating Shifts: Holding Your Sleep Together When Your Schedule Keeps Changing

If your schedule changes every week, "just go to bed at the same time" is useless advice. Nights, days and days off all want sleep at different hours, and your body never gets to settle.

What started as a routine back and forth to Bermuda in one day turned into 5 days of westbound and eastbound across timezones. I never made it to Bermuda, all of a sudden I was on my way to Shanghai and eventually London.

Flight attendants do go westbound and eastbound on a regular basis but there are rules. You would not fly all night to Europe then the next day get up at dawn and go to Asia. If you were going east, you kept going and perhaps a few days later you were going West. Plans fall apart because of weather, mechanical issues etc...

How did I deal with this? I had four rules of my own:

1. Keep your home rhythm and let the schedule move around it.
2. Sleep when your body begs for it.
3. Plan your sleep ahead of every schedule change.
4. Stay close to your work sleep schedule on days off.

I come back to each of them below.

When I finally got home I slept for a day, literally, and as soon as I could I went back to my regular sleep anchor.

Looking back, Bermuda taught me something bigger than where I ended up. Sometimes you don't control your schedule. Weather changes it for flight crews, and for you it might be a boss asking you to cover a second night when you were only counting on one. That can leave you feeling out of control. What gives control back is having your personal rules or system ready before it happens. Then one night shift or two is a change you can handle, because you already know where your sleep anchor is and how you will cope with the change.

In my best sleep schedule article I introduced anchor sleep for night workers on a steady schedule. This article is for the harder case: rotating and irregular shifts, where the schedule itself keeps moving.

Anchor sleep in brief, and what the research shows

Anchor sleep is a block of sleep you take at the same clock time every day, whatever shift you are working. The rest of your sleep moves around it. I explain the method in full in my best sleep schedule article, so here is only what you need for this one.

The idea was developed in the early 1980s by researchers David Minors and James Waterhouse at the University of Manchester. In their first study, volunteers followed irregular sleep routines while the researchers tracked their body rhythms. Without a fixed block of sleep, the volunteers' rhythms drifted and ran longer than 24 hours. With a fixed 4-hour block, the rhythms settled into a steady 24-hour pattern. Regular mealtimes alone did not have the same effect.

In that study, the 4-hour block sat inside an ordinary 8 hours of sleep a day, split into two blocks. The researchers suggested that shift workers might get steadier rhythms by sleeping at the same time on days off as they do after work.

Think of it like sticking to a healthy eating plan. Most plans have hard and fast rules, but what happens when it's someone's birthday and the cake is staring you down? You have a piece, you celebrate, and the next day you go back to your plan. That's the mindset you need for shift work. If you miss your anchor because a shift got derailed, don't scrap the whole thing. Just go back to your anchor for the next shift. It isn't a failure. It's the ebb and flow of life.

Forward or backward rotation

Which way your shifts rotate changes how hard a changeover feels. Forward (clockwise) rotation moves from days to evenings to nights. Backward (counterclockwise) rotation runs the other way, from nights to evenings to days.

The usual explanation is that the body clock finds it easier to move later than earlier, much like jet lag. Forward rotation asks it to move later, and backward rotation asks it to move earlier.

What the research says

• The American Academy of Sleep Medicine fact sheet recommends clockwise rotation where possible and notes that counterclockwise rotation carries greater risk.
• A 2021 study in JAMA Network Open compared 80 nurses on forward-rotating shifts with 64 on backward-rotating shifts. The backward group had more sleepiness and weaker sustained attention, and 60 of the 64 reported elevated sleepiness after night shifts. Forward rotation was not free of problems, though: 51 of the 80 forward-rotating nurses also reported very high sleepiness after night shifts. The authors favour forward rotation.
• That was a field study, so it cannot separate direction from other differences between the groups. An older 1989 conference paper by Duchon and colleagues, based on workers' reported sleep times, found that forward rotation may not be better for sleep: work start times move in the helpful direction, but sleep times do not.

So the evidence leans toward forward rotation, but it is not unanimous.

Morning people and night people

The studies are important because they give you a starting point when your schedule feels like it's running you. But I want to give you real life examples from my own life and my colleagues. I am going to call this the morning people and the night people because I think you already know what I mean when I say this. I am a night person. I have always been a night person, even as a child. My tendency was to stay up late, not get up early.

This served me well for flights where I had to go forward in time. For example, flying from Toronto to Rome, the flight generally left at about 8 pm and flew all night. That was easier for me to do as someone that routinely went to bed late to extend that. That does not mean that I was not tired by the end of the flight, but enough sleep pressure had built up that I was able to sleep once I got to the other end, no matter what time it was there.

On the other hand, trying to go to bed at 8 pm to get up between 3 and 4 am for a 6 am flight from Toronto to Vancouver was hell for me. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep at 8 pm, which meant that I would not be able to get a full 8 hours on those nights, maybe only 4 if I was lucky, and I would have to make it up later that day when I arrived in Vancouver or with a nap between station stops to take the sleep pressure edge off.

My colleagues that were naturally morning people, which means they naturally got up at 5 am or earlier for most of their lives, had no problem with this schedule at all. They did not need a nap and pretty much got 7 to 8 hours of sleep before their shift.

At one point in my life, I decided I should try becoming a morning person. It seemed I was surrounded by them, and they all seemed to get a lot done before I even got out of bed. Apparently the theory goes that doing anything for 30 days creates a new habit. (Research puts the average closer to two months, so my 30 days never stood a chance.) So the plan was that for 30 days I set my alarm for 6 am. The first few days were the hardest. I needed to adjust, so I kept going. A week in, the fatigue started doing the talking, so I decided maybe 7 am would be a better starting point. By week 3 it became 8 am, and after 30 days I was exhausted and just let my body do what it wanted. It wanted the quiet of the late night and a 9 am wake-up. I decided at that point I also needed to surround myself with night people.

So one could conclude that if you are going to work irregular hours for the long run, pick one that is actually going to fit your natural circadian rhythm as much as that is possible. But the most important other conclusion is that my morning people colleagues already maintained that schedule on their days off as did I.

The bigger the gap between work and days off, the harder your body clock's job, which is why even a small shared block helps. The reality is that you may be able to go without sleep here and there if your schedule swings. But if you have any say in the matter, try as much as you can to choose a schedule that gives you as much consistency as possible.

Here is what I saw over years of working beside thousands of flight attendants. The research on morning and night people is mixed, so take this as my observation, not a rule. The people who picked schedules close to their natural rhythm had an easier time, because nature was doing part of the work for them. Everyone else was working harder to get the same result. Fighting your natural rhythm is like trying to carpet a ceiling: a herculean effort with poor results for the most part. Why fight gravity? And whichever type you are, the people who did best also stayed close to their work schedule on their days off. That's the anchor idea in real life: a steadier schedule asks less of your body, and in my experience means less fatigue and better sleep.

If you have a say in your roster, ask for forward rotation and for days off around each change. If you don't, your anchor and your changeover plan matter even more.

Choosing your anchor when your schedule keeps changing

1. Write out your next two weeks of shifts. Include your commute and any other fixed commitments, so you can see the hours you could actually be asleep.
2. Find the longest window you can protect most often. Look for the hours that fall inside your sleep time after a night shift and on your days off. Aim for 4 hours, the length used in the research. If your roster does not allow it, a shorter block of 2 to 3 hours is better than none. That shorter range comes from experience, not from the studies.
3. Choose it and keep it. Pick the window, write it down, and treat it as the one fixed point in your week.
4. Let the rest of your sleep flex. Add a second block of sleep before or after the anchor so that most days add up to about 7 to 8 hours, which is the baseline the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for shift workers.
5. Protect the room. Keep it dark and quiet, tell the people you live with when your anchor is, and turn off electronics at least an hour before bed.
6. Keep caffeine to the first half of your shift. The Academy advises avoiding it in the second half, and any nap during a shift should be short, no longer than 30 minutes.
7. Check how it went. After a week, note how many days you kept your anchor and how you felt, then adjust the window rather than abandoning the idea.

Rule 1: Keep your home rhythm and let the schedule move around it. Even when I was overseas, I maintained one time zone, home, my anchor. In fact I did not change my wristwatch for that reason. My phone guided time at whatever location but my choices were governed by my home anchor. That means I planned how long I was up, outside in daylight, eating, socializing, etc. Our nervous systems like predictability. Most people don't have to deal with time zones on top of dysregulated work schedules, so working your schedule around a constant anchor point will give you back more life outside of your schedule.

Rule 2: Sleep when your body begs for it. Have you ever been so tired that you have fallen asleep in your mashed potatoes mid-bite? That is your brain's way of saying you have been up too long and you need to rest. Sleep isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. When my body hit that mashed potato point, it was a clear signal, not something to fight through or ignore. If a longer sleep was not possible at that moment, I learned that about half an hour, 40 minutes at most for me, was enough to calm the sleep pressure and be able to function relatively well until I was able to get a much longer restorative sleep. Anything over that 40 minute mark made me feel worse, to the point of nausea. Science actually backs up the grogginess you get if you sleep past about 30 minutes. It's called sleep inertia. Don't ignore that message from your nervous system, especially if sleep pressure hits you on your drive home. Pull over someplace safe and set a 30 minute alarm. You and your family will be glad you did. I have been there a few times and it's not worth pushing through. Science has an explanation for the mashed potato point too. It's called sleep pressure, and it's brought on by a brain chemical called adenosine. It's your body's way of protecting your brain and your body.

Most of us have people in our life that we share spaces with. So whether it's roommates or family, cohabitation requires some level of compromise at the best of times. When your schedule involves irregular hours, a discussion with all the people in the household is absolutely necessary. By the end of that discussion, a master schedule, an actual physical one that everyone in the house can access or refer to, would be an ideal tool. The schedule will outline the days and times when you need the most quiet and sleep and the days when your family needs your participation.

In my house, it was a big schedule hung in the hallway at the back of the house. My trips went on it, the family's important events went on it so I could be there for them, and I marked the times around each trip when I needed the most quiet. I also set up a spare room as far from the living area as I could. It all started with one conversation where everyone got to say what was important to them and what they needed. The question to ask yourselves is: how do we create a routine that works for everyone? A whiteboard or a shared calendar in the kitchen works, as long as everyone can see it and everyone helped build it.

Use the calculator. For rotating shifts, the Night Shift Planner calculator asks which way your rotation moves, then gives you an anchor block based on your shift hours and commute. Try it here: nightshiftplanner.com

What it can look like

Here is one example for someone who rotates between 12-hour night shifts (7 pm to 7 am) and 12-hour day shifts (7 am to 7 pm). It is an illustration, not a prescription. Your hours will differ, and the research did not test this exact schedule.

The anchor holds on the days it can, and it does not have to hold on every day. Returning to it quickly is the habit that matters.

A second example: four nights, four off, four days. Say you work four 8-hour night shifts (11 pm to 7 am), then four days off, then four 8-hour day shifts (7 am to 3 pm), then four more days off, and repeat. This is another illustration, not a prescription, and the research didn't test it. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends keeping runs of night shifts to three where possible, so this pattern is a common reality, not an ideal.

• During the night shifts, sleep after work and protect an anchor of 8 am to noon. An 8-hour shift leaves more room than a 12-hour one, so you may be able to add a second block in the afternoon.
• On the first days off after your nights, keep your anchor for the first day or two so you don't crash. Then start moving your sleep earlier, a little at a time, as in Rule 3, so that by your first day shift you're already used to going to bed around 10 pm.
• During the day shifts, the 8 am to noon anchor can't happen. Keep a steady bedtime and wake time, roughly 10 pm to 5:30 am, and don't count the anchor as missed.
• On the days off after your day shifts, move your sleep later, a little at a time, toward the next run of nights.

Changeover days

The days when your schedule flips are where sleep tends to fall apart, so plan them on purpose.

1. Keep the anchor fixed. Whatever else moves, hold your anchor block at the same clock time across the flip if you can. It is the one fixed point you carry from one pattern to the next.
2. Ask for time off around the change. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine suggests that for rapidly changing shifts, the new shift should start and end with a day or more off. It also advises keeping runs of night shifts short, with recovery days afterward.
3. Keep naps short and caffeine early. The Academy advises that naps during a shift be no longer than 30 minutes, and that you avoid caffeine in the second half of the shift.
4. Repeat your sleep-room routine. Use the same setup from my best sleep schedule article wherever you sleep, including a hotel.

Rule 3: Plan your sleep ahead of every schedule change. When I was able to plan out my schedule I would plan my sleep and life around that and one of the ways I planned was by training my body. What does that mean? If I was flying to Europe that usually meant flying all night. 3 days prior to the flight I would start to move my bedtime later by about an hour each night and my wake-up an hour later each morning. If I was going to Asia, that meant an early wake-up and flying all day. I would start about 4 days before the flight to go to bed half an hour earlier each night and wake up an hour earlier each morning to create sleep pressure the next night. Delaying sleep till later was easy for me because I was already a night person, but going to bed earlier to get up earlier was a psychological fight. In my head the night was me time, everyone was asleep and I could just relax, but earlier felt like I was giving up me time. I got over that by telling my brain I had so many things to look forward to once I arrived in Japan, like arriving a little more rested, which gave me more time to enjoy the sights of Japan instead of fighting fatigue. I would joke with my colleagues that flight attendants are the only people who will fly 14 hours just to go to a dollar store in Japan. I mean, what kind of person would put that much time and energy into going to a dollar store!? By about day three I had adjusted mentally and physically, for the most part, to an earlier bedtime. This is what worked for me. It is my experience, not something the research has tested. Whatever your job, look at the hours of your next shift and start moving your sleep toward them a few days ahead.

Common mistakes, and when this won't be enough

• Picking a window that clashes with your commute or family routine. An anchor you cannot keep is worse than none. Choose from the hours you actually control.
• Treating days off as a free-for-all. The idea behind anchor sleep is that your body keeps one steady reference point. If you drop it entirely on days off, there is nothing to hold on to.
• Giving up after a missed day. Missing the anchor on a day shift is expected. Go back to it the next time you can.
• Expecting it to fix everything. Anchor sleep is one tool. It does not replace good sleep conditions, and it will not suit every schedule.

Rule 4: Stay close to your work sleep schedule on days off. Days off are for recuperating, but if you don't want to feel like your whole life becomes just one giant, never-ending work/recuperate cycle, the secret is to not waste your time, energy and health trying to maintain a completely different schedule on your days off. Shifting your sleep a few hours later or earlier on your days off, depending on your schedule, works, but anything more than that will cost you more of your life outside of work. I learned this the hard way when I first started in the airlines. I thought I had to go back to a 9-to-5 schedule on my days off to have a life. All it did was leave me starting shifts exhausted. On a particular flight, we were taxiing to take off, the slow roll of the wheels to the runway, and all of a sudden there it was, the sleep pressure. I could barely keep my eyes open. I had just started my shift. This was going to be a fight to stay awake till I could take my break and get a 30 minute nap. I took a big gulp of cold water and, after takeoff, coffee to get me to the nap. The biggest change came after that flight, when I realized I needed to take a hard look at my schedule and the choices I made around it. When I changed that mindset, my life stopped being one big work/recuperate cycle. Days off needed to be aligned with the choice of job.

When your schedule is out of your hands. Some patterns leave no window that repeats. Use the changeover steps above, and if you have any say in your roster, ask for forward rotation and days off at each change.

When to talk to your doctor. If you are still struggling with sleep or staying awake after a few weeks of steady effort, or you feel dangerously sleepy at work or while driving, speak to your doctor. You can read more about this in our article on shift work sleep disorder.

You cannot control every part of a changing schedule, but you can choose one block of sleep and defend it. Start with the longest window you can keep most of the time, ideally four hours, and let the rest of your sleep bend around it.

Research gives you a starting point. Your own life is where you test it. Try it, track how it feels, and adjust it until it works for you.

To map your sleep windows around your next shifts, try the Night Shift Planner calculator. If you would like help building a plan around your real schedule, that is what the Shift Work Sleep Reset is for.

*This article is education and coaching, not medical care. It does not diagnose or treat any condition and does not replace advice from your own doctor or other health professional.*