Written for the people the advice forgets.

Why this exists

Go to bed at ten. Wake at six. No caffeine after two. That advice is fine, and it is useless if your schedule rotates every few weeks, if you are driving home as the sun comes up, or if going to bed earlier is simply not something you are allowed to do.

The underlying biology does not change between a day worker and a night worker. Circadian timing, sleep pressure, light, core temperature, arousal: same mechanisms, same research. What changes is which levers you can actually reach. If you cannot control when you sleep, you can still control light exposure, caffeine timing, wind-down, and how you recover between shifts. That is the subject here.

Shift workers and first responders get the most attention on this site because they are the hardest case. Protocols that hold up across a 48 hold up for everyone else too.

Who writes it

SleepMedic is written by me, Jaden Schwartz - a working paramedic. Almost five years in EMS so far, across close to every schedule the job can hand you: 10s, 12s, day shift, night shift, swings, 24s, 36s, 48s, and a stretch of two weeks on, two weeks off.

I have also had insomnia. What fixed it was not a supplement or a gadget; it was deciding sleep was worth honoring, holding a consistent anchor, and using the science in a form that survives a real schedule. Sleep is a keystone habit. Get it right and health, happiness, relationships, and the rest of it get easier. This site exists to make that attainable for people who work when everyone else sleeps.

Published under TeachMeToLive LLC.

Nobody here is your doctor. This site covers population-level research and general protocols. If you have a diagnosed sleep disorder, a medical condition affecting your sleep, or a fatigue-related safety concern at work, talk to a provider who knows your history.

How we source

The value of this site rests entirely on whether the citations hold up. So:

• Primary firstPeer-reviewed journals, CDC data, AASM guidelines, and NIH publications before secondary coverage. Secondary sources are used only where they represent the underlying research accurately.
• Cited inlineEvery substantive claim links to the study or the authoritative summary it came from, so you can check the work rather than take our word for it.
• Disagreement statedWhere the evidence is mixed, thin, or context-dependent, we say so instead of smoothing it into a confident recommendation. Where a popular claim conflicts with the primary literature, we say that too.
• No paid placementNo sponsored content and no affiliate arrangements that influence what gets covered or recommended. If a commercial relationship ever exists, it gets disclosed in the post.
• Corrections keptWhen something here turns out to be wrong, it gets fixed in place and the change is noted rather than quietly deleted.

What you can get from it

Two things, both free. A personalized sleep plan built from six questions about your actual rotation, with the timings computed rather than generated. And a weekly email that covers one piece of research and what to do with it.