Shift Work:
It's Multiplication Effect
on Your Health
People who work shifts can end up with all of the same imbalances as everyone else, but they are also at an even greater disadvantage because SHIFT WORK ITSELF has a multiplying effect on core imbalances. This means that people working shift work have a higher risk of developing a chronic disease. This effect is so serious that the World Health Organization has added shift work to its list of probable carcinogens. This means that it is very likely that shift work will CAUSE cancer. To learn how this happens, we need to understand that shift work is a biological abnormality.
Shift work disrupts our internal clock, called the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is a complex system that sends signals to many of our cells to tell them what to do and what time to do it. Disrupting the circadian rhythm causes major changes in our bodies because we enter an unnatural state that's out of sync with the Earth.
What is the Circadian Rhythm?
Our Earth has an obvious rhythm that occurs right before our very eyes every day. This is the rhythm between day and night, light and darkness and it is one of the most prevailing rhythms that we experience. The Earth spins on its axis, alternately exposing us to and hiding us from the light of the Sun. The time that it takes for the Earth to complete a rotation is almost exactly 24 hours. Ironically, our own body clock runs very close to this at about 25 hours. It's no coincidence that there are rhythmic changes in our bodies that are affected by light and that our bodies are running according to the same rhythm as the Earth’s rotation. 
That's why this internal body clock of ours is called the circadian rhythm. In Latin, ‘circa’ means ‘about’ and ‘diem’ means ‘day’. So our body clocks are running in the period of about a day. In a normal situation, our body clocks are synchronized every day with the light so that we remain in pace with the natural world. Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of living in the modern world is that we have created our own unnatural environment with our artificial lights, so we can be awake or asleep whenever we wish or need to be, such as the case of the night shift worker.
Remember that night work and daytime sleep are actually biological abnormalities and can cause our circadian rhythm to become disrupted.
When a disruption of the circadian rhythm occurs, a cascade of changes can take place as cells which normally produce various hormones at certain times become off-kilter and produce hormones when they are not normally meant to be manufactured. Thus, a shift worker will develop imbalances because their body is essentially in a state of confusion. If this confusion is allowed to perpetuate, and the imbalances are not returned to order, serious consequences result. Shift workers are clearly at a greater risk than the general population for developing disorders that we will categorize as The Shift Health Dysfunctions: Excess Weight, Digestive disorders, Shift-lag and Fatigue, Blood Sugar Imbalance, Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer.