A One-Year Experiment in Living the Shift Worker’s Paradox

The writing of a book is not a romantic activity. It does not entail coffee shops, neat desks and easily accessible inspiration. The construction of The Shift Worker Paradox was a battle of attrition, the writing after a night shift, the editing when sleep-deprived, and the complicated research when my own circadian rhythm was overturned.

For the last 18-24 months I was writing about misalignment and at the same time had been suffering misalignment. The resultant expenditure was physical. The very nature of shift work is that it causes psychological stress; writing only increases that stress.

When these are combined, they create a metabolic storm that is characterized by:

• Irregular sleep patterns.

• Impeded exercise routines

• Sustained high levels of cortisol.

• Progressive weight gain

• Unnoticeable inflammation until it reaches a clinical significance.

• A nervous system that is best suited to survival and not clarity.

I finished the book, but my biology suffered.

The Body I Am Starting This Year With. The human body is not provided with clean templates, instead, it introduces scar tissue and anticipates adaptation.

I have had two serious knee injuries that have changed my gait. On some occasions I walk like a wounded pirate, stiff, lopsided and always ready to protect the unanticipated next step.

My hamstrings are taut; stride shortened; I am far from the athlete I once was. In line, a diagnosis of hypertension after COVID, which is the only medical condition that I am dealing with for now. Other than a BMI of 35.

My body is a ledger of the biological systems under upheaval, after extended circadian impact, chronic stress, and impaired recovery and the writing of a book.

I am not entering the new year in optimal fitness. Far from it. I enter in a state that is representative of most shift workers: wounded, out of shape, humbled but not defeated.

This is exactly the reason why the next year is consequential.

The Commitment I am going to perform an activity that I have not been doing before in the following 12 months: I will invest a year of my life living with the principles laid in the book I have written.

I will follow the full Shift Worker Protocol, all principles, levers and rhythmic behavior which enhances my metabolic resilience:

• Circadian‑aligned sleep

• Biological daytime rhythmic eating.

• Strength exercise as metabolic armor.

• Mobility to work out recently neglected knees.

• Regulated exposure to light and dark.

• Reestablishing gut circadian rhythm.

• Muscle repair with the help of protein-based nutrition.

• Physiological informed stress modulation.

It is not viable to publish all meals on a 365-day basis, but it is necessary to publish the veracity. Therefore, I will record whatever information I can to provide a quantitative and qualitative account and weekly updates.

I will make photographic records every month but will not publish them until the end of the year. When the cycle is complete, I will be able to show, not guess, what happens when a shift-work body works to corrects the underlying currents working against out physiology.

It took me almost two years to write the Shift Worker's Paradox, now I will spend a year to qualify as empirical testimony to it.

The Alignment Year

A 12-month experiment that focuses on rhythm, repair and resilience. I will give frequent updates, yet not with the goal of being perfect, or of being perfect in the way of being a performer, but rather being truthful, physiologically, and by the slow process of re-taking one's health.

 All updates, lessons, and progress from The Alignment Year will land first in the newsletter—subscribe to stay in rhythm.