Name: AfterShift
Availability: InStock

Question 1

What is AfterShift?

Accepted Answer

AfterShift is a sleep and recovery app designed specifically for shift workers. It tracks sleep, naps, and fatigue in the context of your actual work schedule — with a Shift Recovery Score, smart caffeine timing, and fragmentation insights. Unlike generic sleep apps, it does not compare you to a 9-to-5 baseline.

Question 2

Who is AfterShift for?

Accepted Answer

Nurses, paramedics, firefighters, police officers, pilots, factory workers, control-room operators, and anyone working night shifts, rotating schedules, early starts, or on-call hours. If your week includes a DuPont, Pitman, 2-2-3, 4-on-4-off, 12-hour, or swing rotation, AfterShift is built for you.

Question 3

How is AfterShift different from OffShift, ShiftSleep, Timeshifter, or generic sleep apps?

Accepted Answer

Generic sleep apps assume a regular schedule and compare you to a 9-to-5 benchmark. Other shift-work apps mostly score core night sleep and treat naps as a footnote. AfterShift is built around two ideas the others miss: (1) naps are first-class recovery and are factored into the Shift Recovery Score, and (2) caffeine timing is calibrated to your actual next shift, not a textbook 2 p.m. cutoff. AfterShift is also private by default — no account, no tracking, no health-data resale.

Question 4

What is the Shift Recovery Score, and how is it calculated?

Accepted Answer

The Shift Recovery Score is a single 0–100 number that estimates how recovered you are before your next shift. It combines four inputs: sleep quality (stage composition: Core, Deep, REM), sleep continuity (how fragmented the block was), nap contribution (recent naps weighted by length and timing), and proximity to your next shift (recovery decays as the next block approaches). The score is informational — it is not a medical assessment and is not a diagnosis of Shift Work Disorder. See the full Shift Recovery Score methodology page for input weightings, decay model, and what the literature does and does not support.

Question 5

Why do naps count toward recovery in AfterShift?

Accepted Answer

Because for shift workers, naps are not a failure mode — they are a recovery strategy. A 20-minute pre-shift nap reduces sleep inertia on a long block; a 90-minute mid-shift nap protects REM and Deep sleep when the main sleep window is short. Sleep researchers studying rotating and on-call work consistently treat naps as legitimate recovery, especially prophylactic naps before night shifts. AfterShift weights nap length and timing into the Shift Recovery Score so a well-placed nap actually moves the number.

Question 6

Does AfterShift help with Shift Work Disorder (SWSD)?

Accepted Answer

AfterShift is an informational recovery tracker, not a treatment for Shift Work Disorder. SWSD is a circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorder classified in the ICSD-3 and should be diagnosed and treated by a sleep specialist. AfterShift can help you see your own patterns — fragmented weeks, caffeine timing, nap contribution — but if your sleep is significantly impaired by your schedule, talk to a clinician. The U.S. NIOSH shift work resources are a reasonable starting point.

Question 7

Which shift patterns does AfterShift support?

Accepted Answer

Any pattern you can put in your calendar. The app has specific awareness of common rotations — DuPont (4 nights / 3 off / 3 days / 1 off / 3 nights / 3 off / 4 days / 7 off), Pitman (2-2-3), 4-on-4-off, 12-hour days/nights, swing shifts, and unpredictable on-call. Calendar shift import detects work blocks automatically, and the Shift Recovery Score adjusts to whatever you actually work — including forward rotations (day → evening → night), which sleep science generally favors over backward rotations.

Question 8

Does AfterShift give caffeine timing recommendations?

Accepted Answer

Yes — and they are not a fixed daily cutoff. AfterShift looks at your next scheduled shift and your current sleep window, then shows when caffeine still helps versus when it starts pushing your next sleep out of reach. For a worker rotating to nights, the right caffeine cutoff is hours later than a 9-to-5 textbook would suggest; for the recovery day after a night block, it may be hours earlier.

Question 9

Does AfterShift give medical advice?

Accepted Answer

No. AfterShift is a recovery tracking and planning tool. It provides calm, clear insights — not medical diagnoses or treatment recommendations. If you suspect Shift Work Disorder, chronic insomnia, sleep apnea, or any other clinical sleep condition, see a sleep specialist.

Question 10

Is AfterShift free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Core features — sleep tracking, nap tracking, and basic recovery summaries — are free. Premium unlocks the full Shift Recovery Score, fatigue and fragmentation insights, smart caffeine timing, multi-week trends, and exportable summaries — $3.99/month, $24.99/year, or $39.99 lifetime. Lifetime supports Family Sharing — one purchase covers up to 5 family members at no extra cost. Prices in USD; the App Store shows your local currency at checkout.

Question 11

Does AfterShift sell my health data?

Accepted Answer

No. AfterShift has no ads, no third-party trackers, no analytics SDKs, and no data resale. Your sleep, naps, and shift data stay on your device and in your private iCloud (if you choose to enable iCloud). Health data never leaves the device unless you explicitly export a summary.

Question 12

Do I need an Apple Watch?

Accepted Answer

No — an iPhone with Apple Health is enough to get useful data, especially if you use the built-in iOS Sleep features. An Apple Watch makes nap detection and sleep-stage data more accurate, but is not required.

Question 13

Should I get morning light after a night shift, or block it?

Accepted Answer

Both — at different times, for different goals. If you are staying on a night-shift schedule, block bright morning light on the commute home (sunglasses help) and sleep in a dark room: bright light tells your circadian clock it is daytime and makes it harder to fall asleep. If you are transitioning back to day life, the opposite is true — get bright light in the morning to phase-advance your clock. AfterShift uses your scheduled shifts to indicate which mode you are in. For the full circadian-science background, sleep specialists and the U.S. NIOSH shift work resources cover light exposure timing in detail.

Question 14

What does sleep inertia have to do with shift work?

Accepted Answer

Sleep inertia is the groggy, slowed-reaction state in the first 15–30 minutes after waking. For shift workers it matters in two places: (1) waking from a deep mid-shift nap can leave inertia bad enough that the nap costs more than it gives — AfterShift's nap guidance favors lengths that avoid this, and (2) the start of a night shift after a daytime sleep often comes with residual inertia that masquerades as fatigue. Knowing the difference matters when you are deciding whether you actually need caffeine, or whether you just need fifteen minutes.

Question 15

Does it matter if I'm a morning person or a night owl for shift work?

Accepted Answer

Yes — your chronotype is one of the biggest predictors of how hard rotating and night shifts will hit you. Strong morning types (larks) struggle more with permanent night shifts because their circadian system resists the phase shift; strong evening types (owls) usually adapt better to nights but pay for it on early-morning rotations. Most people sit in the middle. AfterShift does not ask you to self-label as one or the other — your actual sleep timing and recovery pattern across rotations are stronger signals than any chronotype questionnaire. If you want a formal read on yours, the MEQ (Horne-Östberg Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire) and the MCTQ (Munich ChronoType Questionnaire) are the two validated tools sleep researchers use.

Question 16

Should I take melatonin for shift work? Does AfterShift recommend supplements?

Accepted Answer

AfterShift does not give supplement recommendations — that conversation belongs with a clinician or pharmacist. What we can fairly say from the literature: low-dose melatonin (0.3–3 mg) taken at the start of your intended sleep window is the use case sleep researchers most often discuss for shift workers, and it acts as a circadian phase-shifter as much as a sedative — meaning when you take it matters more than how much. Higher doses are not better and increase next-day grogginess in some people. Melatonin sold in the U.S. is unregulated and dose-labelled inconsistently. The U.S. NIOSH shift work module and the AASM's clinical guidance both cover melatonin timing for shift workers in more depth — talk to your clinician before starting any supplement.

Question 17

What are sleep latency and sleep efficiency, and does AfterShift track them?

Accepted Answer

Sleep latency is how long it takes you to fall asleep after lights-out; sleep efficiency is the percentage of time in bed actually spent asleep. Both are standard metrics in sleep science. For shift workers, both numbers usually get worse with daytime sleep — bright daylight, ambient noise, and a circadian system still saying "this is the wrong time" all push latency up and efficiency down. AfterShift reads both signals from Apple Health when available and surfaces them in the Trends view. They feed into the sleep-quality input of the Shift Recovery Score but are not the score itself — a chronically low sleep efficiency on daytime sleep is a structural problem with your sleep environment (light, noise, partner schedule) more than a number to chase.

Question 18

What is social jet lag, and does it matter for shift workers?

Accepted Answer

Social jet lag is the term sleep researchers use for the gap between your biologically preferred sleep timing and the schedule your work or social life imposes — most people experience some on Monday mornings after a freer weekend. For shift workers it is the same mechanism but much larger: a permanent night-shift nurse spending days off with daytime-sleeping family is essentially flying across time zones every weekend, and the recovery cost is real. AfterShift does not separately label social jet lag, but the fragmentation and recovery-score patterns across rotation transitions are where you see it — the day after a forced realignment is almost always your weakest recovery day in the block, and the score reflects that. The MCTQ (Munich ChronoType Questionnaire) is the validated tool researchers use to quantify social jet lag if you want a formal read.

Sleep & recovery built around your shifts.

Pricing

Why AfterShift exists.

An independent Apple studio building for the people the 9-to-5 sleep apps ignore.

Is AfterShift right for you?

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What you can do

Why we built AfterShift — and what generic sleep apps get wrong about night-shift life

FAQ

Privacy

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