Climbing the ladders at the Aster Chemicals and Energy refinery left him breathless. “Working night shifts is against the body’s natural rhythms,” Attan, now 66, says. More than 40 years of shifts had left his sleep unsettled and his body clock in disarray . “Days flipped into nights, my sleep became erratic and my body never found a rhythm. I no longer ate for nourishment; food was a tool to stay awake.”