This week, I’m working the night shift for the first time in my life, and I have no idea how I’m supposed to get my body adjusted to it. I have to be awake and alert from midnight till 8am, for seven nights in a row, starting Tuesday.
I’m trying to push myself to stay up as late as I possibly can tonight, so I can sleep later tomorrow, and try to start shifting my internal clock, but I don’t know how long I can hold out. I’m guessing 2 or 3 in the morning, tops.
How do people do it? I’m going to have to get better at switching myself to nights and back, since I’m the bottom of the totem pole in the lab and I’ll be stuck with the shifts nobody else wants. I guarantee you that coffee will be a major part of keeping myself awake through the nights, but it won’t be enough if my body shuts down from lack of sleep.
I work nightfill in a supermarket (generally finishing at midnight), but I quite often work from 10pm in the evening until 5am in the morning. So, with that in mind, the best advice I can offer you is:
Have a nap in the late afternoon. It works wonders for re-adjusting your body clock. A cup of coffee here and there- but not too many- can also do wonders for perking you up, and finally: TURN OFF/UNPLUG YOUR PHONE when you get home, so you don’t get woken up by telemarketers at 8am or your mum wondering if you need a new duvet because she’s just found this really nice one on sale at Myer… you get the idea.
If your job allows it, a walkman (or an MP3 player with a radio in it) is also a plus- just being able to listen to the radio, hearing another human voice, and realising you’re not the only person who’s awake at that hour is a major plus, as well as keeping you up with either the news, or music to keep you occupied.
Once you get used to it, it’s really not that bad- but it’s one of those things that are hard if you’re not naturally a night person to begin with…
I worked graveyard shift (and other night shifts) for many years. The problem wasn’t the work hours, but sleeping in the day. Especially since I was living in Manhattan with all its noise. I never got enough sleep, sometimes none at all, and it took a huge toll on my mental and physical health. They couldn’t pay me enough to do that again.
I’ve always enjoyed night shifts because there were fewer people around telling me what to do or keeping me from doing my work by talking about their boyfriends incessantly.
You don’t say what kind of lab you’re working in, but you may want to play a radio or CD player if nobody else is there to be bothered, rather than use earphones. When you’re alone, there isn’t anybody else to hear a problem with the equipment, etc.
Interesting post. Ive never been great at night shifts, and in January took a full time position that DID NOT include nights (Rare for a nurse with my low seniority here.) However Im picking up over time and doing the nights thing again. (Which is why Im on here so late/early)
What worked best for me is the day before my night shift I stay up late and then get up as early as possible. So go to bed around 2 or so, but still get up at 7 or 8. go out, do errands, shop, whatever. Then get a nap in the evening. You will be tired enough by the end of the day to actually be able to sleep.
Other than that…good luck. I find munching fruit helps, and drinking water… rather than coffee which makes me unable to sleep in the morning.
11-7s /midnight to 8 is not so bad. Its the 12 hour nights… 7pm to 7 am that completely wreck me.
I’m working in a hospital blood bank. There is a radio / CD player in the lab, and I normally bring some music with me when I’m working alone. I’ll bring upbeat happy stuff to keep my eyes open this week!
I like the “working alone” aspect, because I can do my own thing and don’t have to get sucked into conversations that really don’t interest me. Also, I’m hoping it’ll be a quiet week at the hospital, so I can get some studying done. I’m taking the ASCP exam next week and I need to go over things before I’ll feel ready.
Mostly, I just need to know how to switch my body into being nocturnal for a week. I’m usually a night person anyway, staying up till 1 or 2 in the morning most of the time without a problem. But staying up all night? I’ll try the napping, that might help.
If this doesn’t work, I’ll have to change my availabilities. It might mean fewer hours and a smaller paycheck, but if my body can’t handle it, forget it.
I agree with the posts about napping, telephone unplugging, etc. I usually found it helpful to have some studying with me, too. I think I wrote the majority of my papers at the hospital where I was working nights (1-to-1 specials, i.e., sitting outside the door of, or next to, a patient on suicide watch–no music allowed, obviously).
Are you a psych nurse? I am. And thats what I’ve been doing all night instead of sleeping. Reading SDMB while doing a 1:1. Computer charting every hour, and reading the other 58 minutes. Plus this is overtime, which I’m banking to take time off in September/October.
I have always found that I have to shift my WHOLE day to accomodate working nights.
Firstly, if you need 1 hour to get awake, showered, breakfasted and to work, GET UP 1 HOUR BEFORE YOUR SHIFT STARTS. Yup, just like it was a day shift.
Secondly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY - when you get home, if when you get home from a day shift you are awake eating dinner and whatnot for 4 hours [say 5 pm, bedtime 10pm] duplicate it. Home at 8 am, bed at 1 pm. then SLEEP just like it was night time. Blackout curtains, no ringer on the phone, people who wake you up are accorded the death penalty. If you need a white noise generator or soft music, then do so.
Sorry you can be up in the day to run errands and in the evening to hang with the buddies, but you have to treat it just like that during the week, and keep it up on weekends. It is a pain in the ass to switch to day hours for 2 days then back to nights.
If you cant deal with it, it sucks and maybe you cant do nights…your whole family has to adjust as well. If you have kids, they need to understand that is your sleep time, and you cant be disturbed. Put a lock on the door and punish them if they pound on it to wake you up if it isnt an emergency that you have to deal with.
Several years ago I worked shifts one summer. They were rotating shifts, so at the end of the week I’d have 8 hours between the time I walked out the gate and the time I came back in. Also, as a lowly summer worker I couldn’t count on getting my two days off per week together, let alone coinciding with the weekends. I hated it, but it paid well.
I coped with night shifts by finding the deepest, darkest, quietest corner of the basement and sleeping through the day there, and trying to keep my waking hours consistent through the week.
Don’t eat anything all day. Two days if you can take it. NOTHING during the daylight hours.
Then when night hits, eat. I don’t know if it’s just that your body senses food and stays awake to get more or what… but every time I go a while without eating and then eat something too late (after work or dance class) there’s no way I’m getting to sleep that night.
I used to do night shifts when I was psych nursing. When you are young your body finds it pretty easy. The best trick I learned was to do something before you went to bed during the day. Finish your shift and go out for breakfast, read the papers. Or go to the beach for a swim. Or go home and listen to music while doing some housework. Grab a sleep, then get up and do something before going to work. It helps avoid the “disconnected” feeling you can get working nights.
Good advice so far. One thing that I found when I was working the 11-7 shift at a convenience store was that I had to maintain my sleep-wake schedule even during my days off. It was tempting to temporarily go back to “day” hours so I could hang out with my friends, but even one day off-schedule, and I had to start the whole painful process of resetting my sleep schedule over again.
When I have to cover night shifts, I have no problem switching to the night schedule, but it wrecks me switching back. I’m bleary-eyed and foggy for days after.
However, the one thing I’ve learned is to not try to dope up on caffine, when switching either way. It doesn’t seem to adjust the body’s cycle that well, which is what you really need. Worse, once you start relying on caffine, you’ll find yourself turning to coffee or soda late in the early morning when it’s most difficult to stay awake – which means the caffine is still going to be affecting you when you go home and need to get to sleep.
listen to aruvqan. that covers basically everything you need to get through it and still feel healthy once you’ve made the switch.
now, to get shifted, I’ve found the most effective way for me is just sleep deprivation. two days before your first shift, take an early nap, then do not allow yourself to sleep that night. do whatever works for you to stay awake-- action movies, gaming binge, whatever, just do not let yourself sleep. don’t “rest your eyes”, either, because you’ll find yourself opening them 4 hours later. needless to say, you will be exhausted the next day, but that’s the point-- you will have no problems falling asleep in the afternoon and getting your full eight hours before you have to get up to get ready for work.
if you can’t do sleep deprivation, your alternative is pretty much oversleeping. do your normal sleep routine up through night before your first shift, then the day of your shift, take a few sleeping pills in the early afternoon, and you should be able to stay asleep until it’s time to get ready for work. this has worked for me, but not as well or as consistently as the sleep deprivation method.
one thing I can recommend against for during your shift is caffeine. this may be my own personal biochemistry, but I’ve found that when I try to drink coffee or caffeinated sodas to stay awake for long stretches, it backfires. it gives me a quick up, and then a long and intense down, leaving me feeling more tired than before. the only time I’d submit would be when I was in imminent danger of falling asleep, like finding myself nodding off, not just when I was feeling a little groggy.
Seriously. I work night shifts on Friday and Saturday, and I take a sleeping pill late on Friday morning – even if I slept Thrusday night – and go to bed. It’s the only thing that works for me. Even if I only sleep 4-5 hours on Friday, I’m awake for the night. I take a slppeing pill on Saturday, too, because I am absolutley a day person. No pill, and I only sleep about 3 hours.
Sure, 24 hours in the bank for two eight hour shifts on a 1:1 sounded good last week. I want more time off later, this is a great idea, The Boy can sleep over at my parents… they were taking him to the parade on Sunday anyway…the rationales go on and on.
But now I have the nausea and shaking and generally feel like death, but I cant nap because it will ruin my sleep for tonight (and Im back to days on Wednesday…for me its the “night before the night before” sleep that really counts…) and The Boy will trash my house if I do…(he’s 2 1/2), The Love Interest wants to take me out tonight… MUST >>>STAY>>>AWAKE.
Ahem!
Antigen, nights are great. Really. You get so much accomplished. No bosses, no bureacracy, just getting the work done, and having time hopefully to do a job well not rushed and half-elbowed. I like working nights, but itfitting in the rest of my life is so horrible.