Based on its powerful technology platform for circadian shifting and insights from its successful jet lag app, Timeshifter is now developing a new app to help those struggling with shift work.
NEW YORK, NY (February 4, 2021) — Timeshifter® – the circadian science company best known for the most-downloaded and highest-rated jet lag app in the world – today announced it will finalize $2 million in financing and its plan to launch a new app for shift workers later this year. This is a natural next step in Timeshifter’s mission to solve multiple billion-dollar problems caused by the mistiming of the circadian clock. The circadian clock controls almost every biological system in our bodies — from our sleep-wake cycle and mood and performance patterns to our metabolic, immune, and reproductive systems.
About 20% of the global labor force are shift workers. That’s almost 700 million people changing to a new schedule soon after they adapt to the previous one, or never adapting at all. Their struggle to adjust impacts their own health and safety, and also affects their employers, families, and their quality of life.
Shift work and irregular hours are prevalent in many industries, including manufacturing, construction, mining, security, hospitality, and warehousing, delivery and transportation. Shift work is also essential to many vital 24/7 services our society relies on around-the-clock to keep us safe and healthy, including doctors, nurses, firefighters, EMTs, police, and the military. Shift work comes at a price, however. Night shift work is associated with an increased risk of accidents and injuries, and long-term, shift workers have an increased risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, depression and even some cancers.
Timeshifter will not replace existing shift work scheduling solutions already in place. Instead, the new app is a tool intended to be used by the shift workers, regardless of their given work schedule. When a shift worker imports their schedule and enter their sleep pattern, chronotype, and personal preferences, the app will provide highly personalized advice to tackle the underlying problem of circadian and sleep disruption, and increase their safety and productivity while improving their quality of life.
“Our plan has always been to move beyond jet lag to solve other large, previously unsolved circadian-based problems. With almost 700 million people working shifts and struggling with irregular work schedules, we can’t continue to ignore the many negative consequences shift work causes.”
Winner of the National Sleep Foundation’s 2019 SleepTech® Award for ‘Best App’, one of Health Magazine’s 2020 Sleep Awards, and a Phocuswright 2019 Innovator, Timeshifter’s jet lag app is the most-downloaded and highest-rated jet lag app worldwide. Based on more than 70,000 post-flight surveys, travelers who followed Timeshifter's advice versus travelers who didn’t follow their Timeshifter plan were 17 times less likely to report very severe jet lag.
Both the jet lag app and new shift work app are being developed with Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Steven Lockley, Ph.D. who is a world-renowned expert in circadian rhythms and sleep, and has provided shift work solutions to NASA’s Mission Control and Formula 1 teams working overnight.
“With its jet lag app, Timeshifter has demonstrated an ability to translate sleep and circadian neuroscience into a tool that helps travelers proactively reset their circadian clock quickly to new time zones. Shift work can cause many of the same problems as jet lag but is a bigger challenge as the problems are not isolated to a specific trip but are part of the workers’ everyday lives. As with jet lag, the app has to address not only the sleep and circadian factors underlying shift work but has to combine this with practical advice that workers can follow. This approach has worked well for jet lag and we are excited to apply the same principles to a problem to improve the health, wellbeing, safety, and productivity of the many millions of shift workers worldwide.”
Timeshifter is finalizing $2 million in financing, and has raised $3 million so far. Investors include former NASA Astronaut, Captain Michael López-Alegría, Chief Medical Officer and Lead Flight Surgeon for Axiom Space, Dr. Smith Johnston, Chairman of Air Canada, Vagn Sørensen, and entrepreneur and endurance GT car racer, John Shoffner.
To learn more about Timeshifter’s shift work app, please visit www.timeshifter.com/the-shift-work-app. If you are a business employing shift workers and interested in joining Timeshifter’s new Global Safety & Healthy Initiative for Shift Workers, please visit www.timeshifter.com/the-shift-work-app/business
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About Timeshifter:
Timeshifter is translating circadian neuroscience into products and services that enable people to improve their safety, health, and performance. In June 2018, Timeshifter launched its first service — now the most-downloaded and highest-rated jet lag app in the world. Based on more than 70,000 post-flight surveys, only 3.61% of travelers who followed Timeshifter's advice struggled with jet lag. Travelers who did not follow their Timeshifter plan were 17 times more likely to report very severe jet lag. In February 2021, Timeshifter announced its plan to launch a new app to help shift workers optimize their sleep, alertness, health, and quality of life. At least 20% of the global labor force are shift workers, changing to a new schedule soon after they adapted to the previous one, or never adapting at all. Timeshifter has also begun strategic work in the field of chronotherapeutics. For more information, visit www.timeshifter.com.
About Steven W. Lockley, Ph.D.:
Dr. Steven Lockley is a Neuroscientist in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School. He is also a Professor and VC Fellow at the Surrey Sleep Research Centre, University of Surrey in the UK, and an Affiliated Faculty member of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard School of Public Health. He received his B.Sc. (Hons) in Biology from the University of Manchester, UK in 1992 and a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Surrey, UK in 1997. With over 25 years of research experience in circadian rhythm and sleep, Dr. Lockley is a specialist in ways to reset the circadian clock, particularly the role of light and melatonin. He has studied the effects of light on the circadian pacemaker extensively including the role of light wavelength, timing, duration and pattern. This work has led to development of ‘smart’ lighting applications designed to improve alertness, safety and productivity, translation of the physiological effects of light into architecture and design, and light therapies for several clinical disorders. Dr. Lockley has also studied the impact of circadian disruption, long work hours, sleepiness and sleep disorders on performance and health in occupational groups, including doctors, police and firefighters, and has led several workplace interventions that have reduced workplace errors and injury. He also advises NASA on how to alleviate jet lag for astronauts traveling the globe and how to reduce the problems associated with shift work at NASA Mission Control. Dr. Lockley has published more than 180 original reports, reviews, chapters and editorials on circadian rhythms and sleep and his research is funded by NASA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) among others. He has won a number of awards including the NASA Johnston Space Center Director's Innovation Team Award (as part of the ISS Flexible Lighting Team). He co-edited the first textbook on sleep and health ‘Sleep, health and society: From Aetiology to Public Health’ and co-authored ‘Sleep: A Very Short Introduction’ from Oxford University Press. For more information, visit Dr. Lockley’s Harvard faculty profile.