Posted on 04/20/2014 6:59:06 PM PDT by kingattax
GROTON, Conn. (AP) — With no sunlight to set day apart from night on a submarine, the U.S. Navy for decades has staggered sailors' working hours on schedules with little resemblance to life above the ocean's surface.
Research by a Navy laboratory in Groton is now leading to changes for the undersea fleet. Military scientists concluded submarine sailors, who traditionally begin a new workday every 18 hours, show less fatigue on a 24-hour schedule, and the Navy has endorsed the findings for any skippers who want to make the switch.
The first submarine to try the new schedule on a full deployment was the USS Scranton, led by Cmdr. Seth Burton, a cancer survivor. He said the illness he experienced as a junior officer helped convince him of the health benefits of keeping a sleep pattern in line with the body's natural rhythm.
"I know that there's lots of medical side effects to just not having a good, regular sleep pattern," said Burton, 41, of Huntsville, Ala.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
On starships they have artificial light in different sections that are synchronized to duodenal cycles to assure continuous coverage and crew morale (except deck officers who never sleep unless they are to be mentally invaded).
The pre-letter Enterprise didn’t even have holo-decks so the submariners should have done this long ago.
You have to do SOMETHING to break the monotony.
Bug juice instead of coffee...something. Omelet instead of over easy...
Active Duty ping.
It may be a bit difficult but there’s some support for a 4 phase cycle. Wake early, sleep early, wake late, sleep late, etc.
Essentially folks have pretty restful sleep by having a long period of wakefulness followed by a short sleep followed by a short wakefulness and then another short sleep. It supposedly keeps the mind more alert upon waking and accomplishes the same level of relaxation. I heard it was more popular in the pre-industrial era when artificial lighting was introduce that allowed people to stay up past 8 or 9 PM.
It’s hard to sync to with the modern era which has folks waking post-dawn only to stay up till near midnight.
run a "Crazy Ivan" scenario at random intervals.
I’m retired, I sleeps when I want to.
You must have meant “diurnal” cycles, I bet. “Duodenal” would refer to a segment of intestine.
Can’t comment on Navy subs but I did a lot of shift work in the hospital where I worked.Horrible.horrible experience for me.In addition I’ve read that there’s (recent) medical research that shows that shift workers tend to develop serious psych problems and enjoy shorter lifespans.As much as they can (in ways consistent with mission readiness) the Navy should carefully review these studies.
One of my coworkers was an OS and he said they were working 6 on 6 off. What kind of idiot would approve a schedule like that.
"Port and Starboard" comes in several flavors:)
8 and 8, 6 and 6, 12 and 12.
One cruise we spent 102 days at sea in the IO and went through all of them.
Great days.
Now they have females, that should give them something to do.
They hate it. Longer workday, longer study day. They see it as a way the Navy is gypping them out of a meal every day.
Yet another way Obastard screws them. He just can’t get enough of pissing off the guys working in the field.
That would work for me if I were aboard a ship and had no commute time. I'd get a couple of hours off and sleep till rested.
Why are dog watches so called?
Because they are curtailed.
In the Age of Sail, watches tended to be 4 hours, with the crew broken down into either two or three watches excepting certain of the ship’s company called idlers who kept a normal schedule. Dog watches of two hours were used to shift the watch changes by two hours per day so that over time the crew duties were balanced.
And here I though the sleep schedules had something to do with subs going co-ed.
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When I was on subs we worked a 24 hour shift.
6 on, 6 off, 6 on, 6 off
When do the girls sleep? Where do the girls sleep? What a joke.
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