night work, maladaptation to

night work, maladaptation to

Difficulty in adapting to sleeping during the day and working at night. In the U.S. about 7.3 million people work at night and are forced to attempt to readjust their day-night schedule for working and sleeping. Adaptation may be facilitated by making the work space as light as possible and scheduling the sleep period (8 hours) in a totally dark environment. See: clock, biological; shift work