I work nights (on and off). The worst thing about this is having to come home and go to sleep in the day.
An idea has just come to me, an idea that I have had before but rejected for a certain reason*, which is to stay up until I am so tired that bed would be preferable to being up and about. If this means staying awake until it’s time for work, then so be it. I can function with no sleep easily.
It will mean being very tired at work. But this is preferable to the depressing prospect of forcing myself to bed in the morning, and it should mean I am tired enough to go straight to bed the next morning.
So, good idea or not? What do you think?
[sub]*A little over a month ago I gave up drinking (with a few ecceptions around christmas and occasionally since, which I don’t regret, much). I have mentioned this before and kind dopers have congratulated me, which I appreciated and still do (in other words I mention it again not for congrats but because it’s relevant). Before this the idea above would not work because it would mean going to bed sober OR going to be drunk and still being drunk when it was time for work. So now that I’ve given up It is feasable[/sub]
As long as your job doesn’t entail motor or logic skills that could be impaired by fatigue – that might be worth a shot if it will help you get into a daytime rhythm of sleep, Lobsang.
On re-reading the OP it looks like the idea is to do this just once. It is not. The idea is to do this every day. Or at least every day that I don’t feel like going to bed. The idea is to do this indefinately or until a pattern establishes it’self or until I switch back to days.
My job occasionally entails logic skills, but ‘skills’ is an overstatement (except when the brown smelly stuff hits the revolving wind machine). I could, and have functioned in the job under extreme tiredness.
My usual routine is to go to bed pretty much when I get home from work, then sleep until about 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I do it this way so that I can spend time with my wife. I sleep while she works then we have the evenings together.
There have been the odd days when I couldn’t sleep and I end up going to work on very little or no sleep and then crashing right into bed when I get home.
It’s been a long time since my work has suffered due to fatigue (actually, I havn’t been doing that well tonight, but it’s more due to a bad cold than fatigue).
Just to let you know, some people manage to make the adjustment easily, some don’t.
By on and off do you mean like 2 days on, 3 days off or similar? Because in that case I would absolutly try going to work monday night, staying up all day tuesday, working tuesday night and then going to bed as normal on wednesday night. In other words, I would only sleep nights.
I tried that several years ago when I worked third shift for a year. It never really worked for me. I had better results going to bed at a regular time (usually about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, waking up just before work). Of course, I never really adjusted to that either. Despite the convenience of being awake and not working when all the stores and banks are open, I wasn’t really cut out for third shift.
You see, the problem I kept having was the sense I was missing out on life when I was sleeping (as all my friends were on day shifts, I actually was)…and that’s something I had to cope with before I could let my body do what it really needed to do–sleep. Talking with my coworkers, the ones who adjusted, it seemed to be more of a matter of working out a schedule that would let you feel like you had a somewhat normal, regular life than anything else. With the married ones, it was pretty easy–they’d just sleep when the kids were off at school, be awake when they got back for evening, and then go work while the kids sleep.
Just my two cents. I don’t think exhausting yourself is going to help that much in the long haul, unless you’re working a funky schedule like Iteki.
I worked 7pm to 7am and was required to think on my feet. I would go to bed a couple of hours after I got off shift, say 10am and would sleep until 6pm or so…in a perfect world. It never was. I kept the room dark and the stereo on low, I forced myself to bed but rarely slept more than 2 or 3 hours and spent my days off sleeping round the clock. Some of my co-workers swore by Benadryl, but I couldn’t stomach the stuff. I demanded a day position and was indulged and I remain grateful. The night staff wouldn’t trade for anything, but there’s no switching like you’re talking about, working a few weeks days and a few weeks nights. You have my compassion…