Anyone got any tips.....

[Guest123]

For adjusting your sleep pattern to days????

On 31st Jan, I start a job at a hopistal which is all nights & weekends.

Now, I havn't done proper 'night' shifts on a regular basis for a long time and dont know how I'm going to deal with trying to sleep during the day because I know that when i get in, I'll want to stay up and maybe even go to other jobs!!! So to all you 'night owls' out there do you have any special tips or tricks for dealing with the adjustment and continual coping with it all.

 

[SirKit Breaker]

Lenny,

Sorry to be bearer of bad news. I had 11 years of continental shifts, and i never got into a good routine with sleeping during the day. I did find it easier in the winter, thats because people dont live outside when it is cold and dark, but the summer was never good, windows open, kids playing in the street etc, noise, phone ringing and so on. I can honestly say i do not miss working nights, and i would rather go begging on the streets before doing them again. But thats just me, i know people who prefer night working.

Good luck anyway, hopefully someone can give you better news.

Cheers.........Howard

 

[pmac10]

set your alarm for 6ish in the morning, get up and down about 6 beer in quick succession, reset alarm for whatever time in the evening and head back to bed. works every time. after the first shift finishes try and stay up for 3 or 4 hours (the tiredness will pass) before going to bed.

 

[alarm man]

set your alarm for 6ish in the morning, get up and down about 6 beer in quick succession, reset alarm for whatever time in the evening and head back to bed. works every time. after the first shift finishes try and stay up for 3 or 4 hours (the tiredness will pass) before going to bed.

i was going to say drink too..

 

[rocker]

Do a 24 hour day to start with, maybe the weekend before you start, i.e. get up at 6 or whenever, but don't go back to bed till 6 the next morning. You could go out and make a night of it.

Get 4 or 5 flourescent battens and put them on a bit of board with a plug etc, when you wake up in the evening turn them on and put them on the windowsill for an hour while you get dressed and have breakfast (which will, of course, will be everyone elses evening meal) you can get special 'sun lamps' but if you get a good white light it's the same thing. They're pretty good for tricking your body clock.

 

[mogga]

ecky answer there Rocker lol Find a house in the middle of nowhere get blackoutblinds and away you go 6 cans of tennants best amber nectar also helps

Wee tip Blackout blinds tend to have a small gap at the side if fitted into the window space Put a run of YT2 down the sides to eliminate the thin band of light

 

[ukpablo]

if any specific neighbours keep making noise when u are sleeping in the day, then start mowing the lawn when u are not on nights at midnight, or plug ur stereo into a timer to come on in ure garden at about 0400hrs so they get the message! if u know what i mean!

 

[Paul.M]

I've been a taxi driver on night shift for 6 years, trust me it fubar's your body clock and takes time to adjust into a routine that suits your lifestyle. If your doing this short term (less than 4 months) key words as above are= alcohol, good curtains, a quiet house, getting use to having your night time (eg a beer and food) at 08:00am.

Don't forget that time is a measurement made by man. Within the 24 hour measure you need X amount of time to sleep, get up and go to work, work, get home, eat, relax, go back to sleep. Simple. All you've got to do now is forget about normality and do what you need and want to want to do without taking on other peoples thoughts of what you are doing at this time of day. Eg:- several times I finished work at 07:30am, I go to a 24 hour co-op and buy a four pack. People in the past have made comments but I reply with "do you have a drink after work? So do I but my time is morning. You have to get your head around these simple little things or it becomes a freakish thing instead of normality.

When you get home, good music helps, good bed helps or just think that its one o'clock in the morning and you have to get up in time (although It's nine am). Loads I can say about this matter, I'm just getting use to waking up at six am instead of going to bed at that time.

 

[pmac10]

if you think driving home after work on a friday afternoon feels good, wait til you experience driving home at 7am on Monday morning against the flow of traffic checking out the happy faces! awesome!!!

 

[Phil]

the night before you start the nights stay up as late as you poss can. get the x box out or something and entertain the brain mate. stay up till 3 or 4 if you can. go to bed and get up at dinnertime.
you should be tired enough to get off when you come home from the first night. get some sunglasses for the drive home if i even cop for any sun it charges me up and i stay awake ----ing and turning for hours.

when you get home treat it like a late finish, have a cuppa or a little tipple and unwind first. if you go to bed with a full head you won`t sleep mate.
i did years of them straight through and found it easier to do 7 straight as the one or two off just knocked me back.

 

[GrannySmiff]

I always used to go straight to bed as soon as I got home about 6-7 and sleep until around 2 pm then you have a little chunk of the afternoon to do stuff, or you can get up earlier if needs be to accomplish something it really is a great time to work as you can make appointments willy nilly with out the need to book time off, or equally stay in bed later.

You will have to work out what suits you I know guys who would stay up till say 12-1 then go to sleep, that really is your call. For me the only hard part was ever the weekends, you come home from a Friday shift and everybody else is in weekend mode, if you only catch a couple of hours in the morning by Sat night you will be out for the count pretty early. I think permanent nights is as easy as normal sleep, its shifts that are the bugger.

As for the actual sleep, I recommend earplugs so much so that I even sleep with them in now at night time, I could sleep anywhere anytime with them in.

 

[Sintra]

Definitely the ear plugs are a must and if you don't have good blackout blinds buy one of those desperate looking eye mask things. I always find it is easier to unwind when I finish in the morning with a few beers before trying to go to sleep.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

 

[Phil]

forgot about the black out blinds they are fantastic.

 

[nickblake]

Take 2 pro plus with Red bull that will keep you awake how the heck youll get to sleep after the shift is any ones guess , no joking , many years ago i used to work for myself doing PA's for groups and toured over the country ,for the first few nights it was hard the way we stayed awake was loads of coffee , so when the body clock adjusted it was ok , having said that i think it was about 2 hours sleep a night which wasnt good ,

 

[oldtimer]

The night before your first night shift stay up a bit later and get up a bit later so instead of 10-7 do 12-9 As a rule i stopped eating on a night shift because I was putting the weight on when I got home at 06:30 bed no breakie just bed got up at 1 in the afternoon and had lunch then my main meal at night and then repeat on the morning of your last night shift set the alarm and get up at 11 if you stay in bed until 1 then you wont get to sleep that night.
As for not eating on nights keep away from the vending machine yes drink tea coffee but only until midnight and after that just water dont be tempted to drink tea /coffee or worst still have a breakfast before or when you get home why ? well think about it before you go to bed at night to dont consume a bowl of cornflakes. After 16 years on shifts I stuck to this for the last 6 years and it worked for me some of my peer group who did what they liked are now another 3 stone heavier and more unfit also beware long term shift work can shorten your lifespan now that I am back to normal body clock stuff do I miss it not a jot in fact in a word its great not doing shifts

 

[Sintra]

Another thing i find that helps is to have the heating turned off in the bedroom. You don't want the room being a sweatbox during the day.

 

[cbw]

Black out liners on the curtains, a mobile air conditioner for the summer....kids/lawnmowers all drowned out.
A glass of red wine and 2 piriton are good
Most important is routine.

When I get in at 07:30, its straight to bed, I will then sleep until 16:30.

IF however I doze off on a sofa for even just an hour it buggers the whole thing up.

I guess because ive worked nights for so many years I have just got used to it!

On bloomin nights Mon, Tue and Wed this week!

Which hospital are you at?

 

[accordfire]

For adjusting your sleep pattern to days????

On 31st Jan, I start a job at a hopistal which is all nights & weekends.

Now, I havn't done proper 'night' shifts on a regular basis for a long time and dont know how I'm going to deal with trying to sleep during the day because I know that when i get in, I'll want to stay up and maybe even go to other jobs!!! So to all you 'night owls' out there do you have any special tips or tricks for dealing with the adjustment and continual coping with it all.

No easy answer mate.

26 years of call out, workaholicalism, and all that jazz (nothing, of course to do with caffeine consumption, smoking, or any other bad habits), ensures I don't sleep more than about two hours in any one go as a rule - and truly, I can't often remember when I last slept from one "shift" to the next.

Best I can say is train yourself over the next week or so to adjust - get up, stay up for an hour, and go back to bed for the day, or do it the other way as someone else said - stay up for 24 hours, and go to bed when you'd normally get up.

Sun lamps are a good idea (or a number of cool white fluorescents) - but to make most use of that, you need to counter it by blocking out the daytime light too -

The easiest way is just to get into it mate - try to rest before your first night, and make a point of getting into bed after it - you'll not sleep a full pattern, but it will get better over the first week or so.

Wish you all the best on it mate.

 

[DurhamSparky]

finish work at 0600 leave at about 0620 fall asleep at wheel at 0635 , get home at 0650ish have a glass of water and eat bowl of ricicles!!
kick cats of bed and wake other half up climbing in!

wake up at 1400 and proceed to eat food at 1500, watch TV play on net then leave work for 1700... at about 2300-0400 i find a area thats quiet and go to sleep with a radio next to my ear just in case some body needs me!!

0600 process starts again!! but i only do 2 nights in a row!!

 

[mogga]

I hated doing one off nights better to do 5 or 7 then a couple of days to get back to norm it was great when i was younger n went out to clubs ect come 2am everyone else was flackin I was just winding up n raring to go