How can I prepare for working night shifts?

Question

I usually work 12 hour days but due to a shortage of shifts the only ones available are nights, which I have had to take. Does anyone have any good advice for preparing for a 12 hour night shift; 8pm - 8.15am? I start Wednesday night, for 2/3 nights. What things can I do to ease my transition when I go back to working days? Thank-you in advance for your answers.

Answer 1

its a bit like jet lag as it takes a day or so to adjust this works for me!!
on your first night in don't sleep past 4pm wed afternoon,during the night stop drinking coffee @4am this gives caffeine a chance to leave your system before 8am,thursday sleep as long as your body wants but always stop the caffeine @4am,the return to a normal day shift is to stay awake as long as possible,maybe a nap for a few hours in the afternoon but only a few hours,no caffeine after 4pm, then off to bed anytime after 10pm

Answer 2

I have had over 30 years of shift work. This includes a week of lates, then a week of nights. Or Afternoons, earlies, then back for nights. But ad-hoc nights is a bind. Your body clock does not have time to adjust. The answer is - there is no simply answer! If you know you have a night shift coming up, just try and get an hour on the settee in the evening. Even relaxing, if you cannot sleep, helps. You will feel tired during the night shift, but your body is more resilient than you realise. It will cope. Remember - death is nature's way of telling you to slow up - and I am still alive to answer your question... !

Answer 3

Well like u i work 5 twelve hour shifts a week 3 8pm till 8am Shifts thenon the last shift i go back 8 hours later and work 4 pm till 4 am then 2 days off what i do is on the night b4 i go back to nights i go to sleep 10 and 12 midnight till about 3am then stay up all morning and go back to sleep at 12 noon and sleep till 7 pm i've been doin it for about 2 years and that is what works 4 me maybe it will help u let me know

Answer 4

You can start by having an energy drink at about 6pm. Stay physically active so that the tiredness doesn't wear you down. Having a glass of cold water every hour should give you a mini boost till your times up. It should be hard at first, but hitting the bed later and later will ease the burden.

When you switch back, it will be the same amount of work as it took to get adjusted to the night shift.Just try not to switch too often, because it screws with your internal clock and after awhile you won't know when to be tired.

Answer 5

Know what you mean. I work 12 hr shift 2 days then nights. I am working tonight at 7 and am now getting my things together. Luckily I work in a nice office and have tv radio etc. I am also able to take a nap if I want to. Working nights whenyou have to stay awake is hard but make sure you have a layin on day b4 and an easy day and take a nap b4 you go in. The worst time is between 3 and 5 am but at these times we drink coffee and natter. good luck.

Answer 6

First, make sure you have blackout curtains behind your regular curtains, so the bedroom is pitch black dark when you do get to sleep... and complete quiet or else use earplugs. Don't drink any caffeine for at least 10 hours before you will be going to bed. Turn your phone and cell phone off while you are sleeping. That's about all you can do when they screw around with your schedule, is ensure that when you DO sleep, it will be a sound sleep and you will be well rested. Hopefully it's temporary, for your sake, my Mom has a really hard time when they screw around with her shifts like that. There's not a lot of jobs in her town, so she takes what she can get, but I keep telling her to consider moving closer to the city, where you can get a "normal work hours" job. It's really hard on a person mentally and physically when you screw around with your internal clock, people are actually less productive, I hate to hear companies pulling that on employees.

Answer 7

I've been on and off of 3rd shift for a couple years now. I even worked 3rd for 14 months straight once. The secret is to stick with the schedule. People that work 3rd and live a 1st shift life on their days off can't adjust very easily at all. Also, find whether sleeping right after or right before work is best for you and stick with that pattern.

Answer 8

Sounds like short notice! If you had a lot more time, I would suggest a gradual change, staying up later and later and so forth. If you had even a little more time, I would suggest what I call a "time displacing exercise". It works like this: if you would normally go to bed at, for example, 10 pm, but are going to begin going to bed at 10 am instead, you would skip going to bed at 10 pm the night before and stay up as late as possible, staying as busy as possible in the interim. Then you would aim to go to bed at 10 am. If you ended up asleep at 7 am or later, you would still have forced your body to begin displacing time. It would still take time to truly be ready for the change, but it would be a sort of "jump-start" exercise. After that, work to have a set schedule of work, meals, chores, sleep, etc. This will help you even more when you go back to working days.

Answer 9

Hi I also work during the night and I have to have it done by 7am.

For me sleep is important so try to go to bed really really early. Since you start working @ 8pm so that might means you start sleeping about 11a. however you went to bed at night the night before I would suggest that you stayed up all night and then go to sleep at 11 to wake up like 5:30p. shower get dress eat dinner and have your lunch and breaks snacks ready for work.

Basically do the opposite ways as you have done mostly of your living/earning switch your nighttime sleep/daytime and your working daytime/nighttime..See???

Answer 10

Start staying up between the hours you work.Do something.Go to the grocery store buy some energy drinks and stay up.During the day sleep.Make sure you sleep.