man coming off his night shift gets into his car. He knows it's the most dangerous part of his day, a time when his body aches for sleep. He struggles to stay awake while driving home. He's tried coffee. He's tried driving with the windows open, or cranking the air conditioning up high. He's tried keeping a Vicks menthol inhaler on hand. So every day he makes a pit stop at the local gas station and buys a bag of ice, and as he turns onto the highway, applies it to different parts of his anatomy to try to keep himself awake and driving safely.
This shift worker's story made an impression on me when I first heard it over 10 years ago. At the time, there was a lot of focus on circadian clocks and the molecular basis of their effect on sleep-wake cycles. Indeed, the ...
