Table 3.

Salivary cortisol on early and late work shifts and rest days, mean ± standard deviation. ^a,b,cSignificantly higher value than early^a, late^b or rest^c days (p < 0.05).

	Early	Late	Rest
Cortisol (nmol/l), natural log
Waking cortisol, S1	2.50 ± 0.54	2.85 ± 0.31a	2.85 ± 0.26a
Waking + 30 m, S2	3.34 ± 0.43b	3.11 ± 0.40	3.20 ± 0.32
Bed-time cortisol, S6	0.68 ± 0.64	0.98 ± 0.78c	0.45 ± 0.92
Increase on waking, CARi	0.83 ± 0.38b,c	0.25 ± 0.41	0.35 ± 0.35
Area under curve, AUCG	32.8 ± 6.80b,c	26.4 ± 6.50	23.7 ± 7.29
Diurnal slope	0.11 ± 0.06	0.15 ± 0.07a	0.20 ± 0.18a