Reclaim Your Time and Your Health — Switch to the Anytime Shift

It’s 7:00. You hit your alarm, reluctantly get out of bed, and start shuffling toward the bathroom to take a shower. Then the disorientation rushes in. You hear your partner listening to the evening news. 

You realize you would have liked to have helped them with dinner, and you would have liked to have helped your kids with their homework. But you needed to get some sleep in the afternoon because, well, you’re up for the night shift today. It’s the nature of the job; it is what it is.

Then in the shower, you start wondering if this career is sustainable. You wonder if there’s something else out there that won’t demand you follow a wildly varying schedule. You wonder if you could find a job that would let you spend time with your family.

TL;DR — yes. But reclaiming your time is about more than just leisure. It’s also about health. So let’s dive in. Here’s why and how you should switch from shift work to flexible work.

It’s not just preference — it’s about well-being

If you’re sick of working in shifts and want a more consistent schedule, you’re not being selfish or fussy. That’s the first thing we need to dispel right away. In fact, when your circadian rhythms become unrhythmic, there can be significant consequences.

But before we get into what researchers uncovered when they examined shift work, we’ll just say: it doesn’t look good. For proof and scientific validation that this type of work setup is unhealthy, we talk about a paper on the topic and include quotes from it immediately below. If you find yourself unconvinced of the necessity of change or doubting if you should even follow through on a career pivot, this can be the factual foundation that keeps you motivated.

However, if you’d prefer to skip the findings, which can be distressing, feel free to scroll down to It doesn’t have to be this way.

It affects both your physical and mental health

All right. You’re reading this, so it means you’re ready for some difficult discoveries about shift work. Let’s go.

In 2023, there was a review of the scientific literature that looked into shift work and night work. Numerous different studies had approached the topic from different angles, and this new paper collected the findings in one overarching examination. Its conclusions were unequivocal.

Specifically, the literature has identified several health problems associated with shift work and night work, including sleep problems, cardiovascular problems, psychological problems, oncological problems, and problems with the female reproductive system. Consequences of Shift Work and Night Work: A Literature Review

While that quote does mention psychological problems, the paper goes on to list them in more detail. Specifically, shift workers were more likely to experience depression and burnout.

It affects your family

But it goes beyond being detrimental for only workers themselves. When people have to sacrifice the time they might otherwise spend with their families, this leads to friction between someone’s work and personal life. And that has real consequences.

The literature has found negative relationships between shift work and the work–family interface, children’s well-being, and marital satisfaction, among others. For example, in a study by Zhao et al. involving 452 fathers and 756 mothers, shift work was associated with higher work–family conflict. Consequences of Shift Work and Night Work: A Literature Review

All of that is significant, but let’s just zoom in on one of those things mentioned: children’s well-being. Here’s one more quote from the paper: “[P]arents’ nonstandard work schedules were associated with negative child developmental outcomes (e.g., mental health issues, obesity, and behavioral problems).”

This all might just be data supporting the lived experience you inhabit. But no matter what, it proves the point. There’s nothing selfish about wanting to look after your own health or the well-being of your family.

It doesn’t have to be this way

You can make a change. You don’t need to keep working intolerable hours, and you don’t need to keep sacrificing your health to earn a paycheck. In fact, if you made the choice to launch a professional pivot to break from an unsustainable schedule, you’d be in good company.

For example, when Jeremy Rivera_{Balancing College, Work, Family, and a Part-Time Bootcamp to Find Tech Success: Jeremy Rivera’s TripleTen Story} worked in a warehouse, he would need to be up before dawn: “I used to wake up at 3:00 a.m. and drive 55 minutes to the warehouse. I would work from 4:00 a.m. to maybe 2:00 p.m.” 

These hours and the intensity of the labor he was expected to put in combined to have real consequences. “After about a year, my body’s starting to hurt. I’m trying to work out but I can’t work out because I’m tired. I can’t really hang out with my friends too much. I knew that I needed to do something.”

He decided to enroll in TripleTen to get out of that cycle. It required dedication, but by staying disciplined with his time management, he mastered the material. Not only that, but he also made the most of the opportunity to join an externship, a hands-on tech project with a real company. So when he graduated, he had the expertise and portfolio to launch a new career in a new industry.

He brought a hard-nosed commitment to his application process. It paid off: soon enough, he’d landed a job in tech, where instead of throwing boxes before the sun rises, he now codes on his own schedule — sometimes from the office. “It’s typically hybrid. Some weeks, I’ll come in most days, but some weeks I’ll come in two days, zero days, one day. It’s up in the air. I come in at around 8:30, I get an hour lunch, I leave at around 4:30, 5:00 — I’ve left at 3:30. It’s not always set.”

You can follow his lead

And Jeremy is far from the only one who’s made this change. In fact, only 13% of our graduates come from a STEM background.

And upon graduating, 87% of our grads_{Why TripleTen Grads Have an 87% Chance of Getting Hired} land jobs they trained for within six months of finishing the program.

Why? Well, we straight up asked over 1,000 decision makers what they were looking for in applicants. The answer? Skills.

And that’s the precise practical and in-demand know-how we focus on providing to our students.

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