How to prevent PTSD by improving night shift sleep

Sleep is like an anchor of a boat, holding steady while the captain rests. Sleep helps your brain to recharge. Like an anchor holds on tight during a storm, sleep allows your brain to weather a storm, or withstand trauma.

Sleep  can be dramatically affected by shift work. Poor quality sleep puts you at risk for mental health trauma. Luckily, shift workers can make small changes that will improve their sleep and prevent a long-term trauma response.

Shift Work

Many people work from nine a.m. to five p.m. during weekdays. Anyone who works different hours is called a shift worker (Gold, 2023). 

Shift workers often experience excessive sleepiness when awake and insomnia when trying to sleep (Gold, 2023). This causes diminished sleep time and poor sleep quality.

Sleep disturbances and PTSD

Anyone can experience PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), but a sleep-deprived brain is more at risk.

The key components of PTSD, according to the American Psychiatric Association, are:

• A traumatic event

• Symptoms that last for more than a month

• Significant problems in your normal routines (2025)

  
  

PTSD causes changes in the brain that affect fear and memory. The part of the brain responsible for expressing fear is overactive (Pace-Schott et al., 2015). People with PTSD are often afraid, nervous, or anxious. The part of the brain responsible for erasing memories, called memory extinction, is slowed (Pace-Schott et al., 2015). Memories of the traumatic event that would be erased during sleep are still present.

For PTSD, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) is an important stage of the sleep cycle (Gold, 2023). During REM sleep, the intensity of emotions is lowered through emotional regulation (Gold, 2023). Parts of the brain responsible for both fear and memory are affected by REM sleep (Pace-Schott et al., 2015). Getting enough REM sleep is important to preventing PTSD.

You may be able to prevent PTSD by prioritizing sleep after a traumatic event. (Gold, 2023). For shift workers, there are specific strategies to improve sleep quality and quantity.

Improving your sleep health means more time in REM sleep. REM sleep improves brain health and prevents PTSD.

Sleep Health at Home

Home is where you sleep. There are changes you can make at home to improve your sleep, even as a shift worker.

Environment Set-up

Before going to sleep, make sure your bedroom is ready. Set up your bedroom with a cooler temperature, increase darkness, and start up your background white noise.

It is best to keep your room cool and dark to promote quality sleep (Gold, 2023). Turn your bedroom temperature down when you sleep. Darken your room by closing doors and fully covering windows. Blackout curtains can help.

Turn on a noise machine. White noise helps drown out daytime noise and stay asleep (Gold, 2023). Large fans can work well as white noise.

Before going to sleep

There are specific techniques for shift workers to improve sleep quality. Take a warm bath before going to sleep. A bath can help relax your body and assists your brain with the hormonal response that leads to sleep (Gold, 2023). Try a brief relaxing meditation before going to sleep. Meditation can help you fall asleep (Gold, 2023). Meditation and a warm bath are helpful right before going to sleep.

Modifications at work

At your work, bright light therapy and naps during break may help support a shift worker’s sleep. Read on to learn more. 

Bright light therapy

Bright light therapy purposely exposes your eyes to brightness or darkness. Bright light for the first part of your shift tells your brain to stay awake and alert. At least 30 minutes of bright light exposure or up to 6 hours is beneficial (Zhao et al., 2025). Bright light therapy can be medium or high-intensity light (Zhao et al., 2025).

On the opposite side of bright light at the start of your shift, use darkness at the end of the shift to tell your body it’s time to sleep.Timing the light on your eyes improves sleep duration for shift workers (Zhao et al., 2025). On your way home from work, wear sunglasses to prepare for sleep (Gold, 2023). 

Naps

During break time, naps may help. Even a single, 20-minute nap can help workers on 12-hour shifts (Redeker et al., 2019). Naps should be shorter than 50 minutes to prevent deep sleep (Redeker et al., 2019). Interrupting deep sleep when you wake up from a nap can make you drowsy. You will be drowsier because your brain was interrupted mid-sleep cycle.

Nap timing and PTSD

Napping or sleeping directly after a traumatic event promotes memory extinction. While you sleep, your brain decreases how much emotion is attached to the stressful memories (Gold, 2023). 

Sleep should be prioritized in the 24 hours that follow a traumatic event (Gold, 2023). Taking a nap and sleeping as well as you can when you go to bed is important after a traumatic event. 

Lifestyle Changes

Lifestyle changes can improve sleep. Small changes to your diet, what you drink, and your activity can impact your sleep quality.

Healthy diet

A healthy diet means something different for everyone. Specific foods affect REM sleep. REM sleep can help prevent PTSD. No matter what diet you follow, try choosing food to help with REM sleep.

If shift workers are eating within 45 minutes of bed, a high carbohydrate snack may help with REM sleep (St-Onge et al., 2016). Focus on carbohydrates that do not have a lot of sugar and are less processed (Sejbuk et al., 2022). Avoid high fat snacks because too much fat decreases REM sleep and increases the number of times you wake up during your sleep (St-Onge et al., 2016). Eating kiwi within 1 hour of bedtime may improve your sleep (St-Onge et al., 2016). If you eat right before going to sleep, try eating kiwi or a low-sugar carbohydrate.

Tart cherries improve sleep quality. They may help reduce inflammation and specifically improve sleep quality in people with high stress and sleep disorders (St-Onge et al., 2016). Add tart cherries or tart cherry juice to your meals.

Certain vitamins help with sleep. Vitamin B-12 and B-6 help increase melatonin, a sleep hormone (St-Onge et al., 2016). Vitamin D and the B vitamins can help you fall asleep and stay asleep. (St-Onge et al., 2016). Not enough Vitamin D can shorten the time you spend asleep (Sejbuk et al., 2022). Make sure you get enough B vitamins and Vitamin D in your diet.

Exercise

Increasing activity helps your sleep (Redeker et al., 2019; Sejbuk et al., 2022). A 4-week walking plan increased sleep quality, how quickly you fall asleep, and how long you stay asleep (Redeker et al., 2019). Be mindful not to add exercise too close to bedtime. Exercise right before bed can make it difficult to fall asleep (Sejbuk et al., 2022).

Reflect on your habits to determine how to increase your activity. This might mean adding a dog walk or a gym visit on your days off. Or walking in place at your desk instead of sitting. Find a way to increase your activity to improve your sleep.

Drink choices

Caffeine makes it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. The effect of caffeine on sleep is dose-dependent, so larger amounts cause larger sleep disturbances (Gardiner, 2023). Caffeine can continue to stay in your body for as long as 10 hours, and sometimes 20 hours (Sejbuk et al., 2022). Caffeine also shortens the total time asleep (Sejbuk et al., 2022). Take steps to decrease your caffeine use.

Challenge yourself to reach for water instead of caffeine. More water causes more REM sleep (Ellis et al., 2023). 

Alcohol shortens the length of REM sleep (Sejbuk et al., 2022). Decrease the amount of alcohol you drink to help prevent PTSD.

Summary

Every step towards quality sleep improves your brain’s ability to prevent PTSD. During sleep, your brain emotionally regulates fear and erases memories. Shift workers improve sleep health at home by taking a bath and meditating before sleeping and keeping the bedroom cool and dark. At work, shift workers use bright light at the start of the shift and darkening glasses at the end. Everyday changes that improve sleep health are decreasing sugar and processed foods, decreasing alcohol intake, increasing physical activity, and replacing caffeine with water. Making small changes to improve your sleep can greatly improve your mental health as a shift worker.

References

Ellis, R. T., Jiwan, N. C., Appell, C. R., Trevino, I. R., Lewis, C., Sterling, R., Ky, A. T., Rolloque, J.-J. S., Keefe, M. S., Dunn, R. A., Sekiguchi, Y., & Luk, H.-Y. (2023). The effect of hydration status on sleep quality: a pilot study. International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings, 2(15).

Gardiner, C., Weakley, J., Burke, L. M., Roach, G. D., Sargent, C., Maniar, N., Townshend, A., & Halson, S. L. (2023). The effect of caffeine on subsequent sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 69, 101764. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2023.101764

Gold, J. (2023). Combating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Nurses by Improving Sleep. Mathews Journal of Nursing and Health Care, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.30654/mjnh.100017

Pace-Schott, E. F., Germain, A., & Milad, M. R. (2015). Sleep and REM sleep disturbance in the pathophysiology of PTSD: the role of extinction memory. Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13587-015-0018-9

Redeker, N. S., Caruso, C. C., Hashmi, S. D., Mullington, J. M., Grandner, M., &

Morgenthaler, T. I. (2019). Workplace Interventions to Promote Sleep Health and an Alert, Healthy Workforce. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 15(04), 649–657. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.7734

Sejbuk, M., Mirończuk-Chodakowska, I., & Witkowska, A. M. (2022). Sleep Quality: A Narrative Review on Nutrition, Stimulants, and Physical Activity as Important Factors. Nutrients, 14(9). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14091912

St-Onge, M.-P., Mikic, A., & Pietrolungo, C. E. (2016). Effects of diet on sleep quality. Advances in Nutrition, 7(5), 938–949. https://doi.org/10.3945/an.116.012336

What is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?. Psychiatry.org - What is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)? (2025, March).

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd

Zhao, C., Li, N., Miao, W., He, Y., & Lin, Y. (2025). A systematic review and meta-analysis on light therapy for sleep disorders in shift workers. Scientific Reports, 15(134). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83789-3