Night shifts

[achillezzz]

What's your opinion on working nightshifts? If you work/worked or just have something to say please do reply here I need to know how to make this work so I can stay healthy and sane while working night time.

[TylerDurden]

Well, my own cycle is set so that I usually feel a little drowsy in the mid-afternoon(c.2-4pm) and feel very tired from c. 2am to 5am. Outside those times, thanks to this rpd diet, I'm quite alert. The only way I've managed to solve the drowsiness mid-afternoon has been to have a little very short siesta during the lunch-hour period. Between 2am-5am is a problem for me. The only thing that I can suggest is using some energising herbal drops(peppermint?, not sure) in your bath and soak in it for a while before you go off to work. Used to work for me quite well.

[achillezzz]

You still work at night?

[TylerDurden]

You still work at night?

No.
 I've never worked throughout the night per se, well except in the Army for some weeks in total . I have sometimes worked in an office until 10pm, though. I was talking about my daily bio-cycle which is always weakest during early-afternoon and early morning.

[raw-al]

I worked swing shift after high school for 1.5 years.

I could not get used to it. Prior to that I never had a cold etc in my life in memory, but afterwards I had a plethora of illnesses.

I don't think there is anything you can do. Some say it is better to work a string of night because at least you get some sort of rhythm. Another thing is to make sure to get your sleep.

Cover the windows so that not even one beam of light comes in. You can get window blind cloth that blocks it 100%. Seriously not even a little. There is a book on that subject but the name escapes me. The author basically blames a lot of the health issues in the last century on the preponderance of lighting that allows us to stay up all night.

Another thing is to make the window cover thick by putting some kind of foam on or in it to block out outside noises. We used the plastic stuff that is sometimes used to wrap parcels and is about 1 cm or 1/3 of an inch thick.

Then cover the cracks in the door where light can come in, to block it completely and remove clocks that emit light and walwarts, power bars etc that have little glowing lights on them.

Basically you want to simulate night. It will help a lot.

I used to work in a place that had a lot of shift workers and some would put tinfoil on their windows. It was a quiet town.

However I found that the workers were emotional. I surmised that the crazy sleep patterns upset them and emotional upsets were the result.

Bottom line is get as much sleep as possible.

[achillezzz]

I am not talking about swing shifts this kind of work will never let your hormones to adjust and you will be in constant stress...

I am talking about only night shift working.
There must be a way to make it work!

I don't want to get sick and fucked the first week.

[Löwenherz]

What's your opinion on working nightshifts? If you work/worked or just have something to say please do reply here I need to know how to make this work so I can stay healthy and sane while working night time.

Frankly, I would avoid frequent nightshifts at all costs.

Löwenherz

[cherimoya_kid]

I recommend doing 3 12-hour days or something similar, if you have to do night shift.  5 8-hour days is just ridiculous.  At least if you're doing the 12-hour days you have 4 days a week to sleep.