For me is like my body can’t decide, sometimes I can, sometimes I wake up exhausted.
I recommend sleeping in a dark room. I’ve spent most of my life working nights and blocking out my windows is a necessity.
If you can sleep with ear plugs in that can help block out all the noise the day walkers make. I personally find them too annoying but other people have found success.
Blackout curtains have been essential for me. Instead of earplugs, I prefer a noisy fan. Circulating the air is good and the constant white noise normalizes hearing stuff, so neighbors or traffic or whatever isn’t different enough to wake me.
My wife has a Bluetooth sleep mask, so she can play soothing stuff from headspace or YouTube or Spotify while keeping light out of her eyes. You can find it pretty cheap.
As we enter dry winter months, a small humidifier in the bedroom might also be a good idea.
It also helps to have a routine on how you wind down for bed so that your body and mind can ease into being ready to sleep even if the clock or the sun are telling you otherwise. Maybe do some light reading, wash your face, set out something for the next day (like your outfit), whatever you need and can repeat nightly.
Yes, same for me.
I’ve been working nights for about 20 years and it was easier when I was younger. Now that I am in my early 40ies I find it more difficult to just go to bed and sleep.
Some weeks I can keep a steady schedule, sleep during the day and feel well rested, but other weeks I can’t get more than a few hours during the day and feel miserable when I work.
However it’s also changing with seasons and things I do during the weekend. I tend to sleep less in summer because of the heat and the light. Also I go camping during the weekends and have to sleep during the night, then switch back to day sleeping during the week. It’s much easier in winter because it’s always cold and dark and I just stay home.
So, it varies a lot for me.
As much as humanly possible, I try to put everything in my day during the 2pm-6pm but when I can’t, I do what I call “resets”. The day before I need to be awake during the day, I will stay up for about 16-20 hours and then go to bed around 2am. It’s essentially resetting my sleep schedule, so of course it occurs mostly during weekends. It’s an extremely unhealthy way to change sleep schedules and should be used sparingly, but it’s effectiveness can’t be beat.
I sleep better with lights, noise and distractions than without; without gives my brain time to think about things like elections, exactly how much time I have left to sleep before I have to get up for work, what troubles I’ll face at work the next day, etc. I slept so much better during the days than I do during night.
edit: For some reason my client decided to post this as I was in the middle of typing a sentence. Edited to actually finish the post.
I worked 12 hour night shifts for a couple years. It was fine for me but falling asleep is sort of my superpower. You may want to get some blackout shades if your room gets to bright in the morning. Also, keeping your body on the night shift time on your days off can help with sleeping.
I second light blocking curtains and I personally sleep with a fan to drown out noise. I also take melatonin about an hour before I lay down, I used to take ambien but I couldn’t handle the side effects anymore. I usually feel pretty well rested, at least enough for my shift.
I basically flipped my schedule when I worked nights. Went to bed at 9 or 10 am and woke up at 4 or 5 pm. I struggled on Wednesday when I wanted to stay “up late” until noon or 2pm and would then sleep until 10 pm.
Much happier back on days with a regular schedule. Though I do miss grocery shopping at 6am or getting to the trail at the crack of dawn since I was already up.
If you’re having trouble getting a restful sleep, try segmented sleeping.
I did this for a year and a half, and I never fully adjusted. I worked 4 10 hour days from 10pm til 8am.
One thing that helped a lot was to go to bed straight after work. Then I’d wake up, go do stuff/work out/be social, then head into work again. The only thing that threw a monkey wrench into this for me was the 3 day weekend, where I’d find my body fighting to return to a normal schedule.
On work days I always get a good 7-8 hours, but if I’m not working I very rarely manage more than 3-4, it’s as if my brain feels like it’s wasting the day. I’m one of those people who can operate comfortably on very little sleep. I use a sleep cycle alarm that is supposed to wake me when it senses I’m only sleeping lightly or something, no idea if any of that stuff’s real/helpful but it can’t hurt. I also maintain a healthy weight (I used to be overweight) which keeps pressure off my neck and reduces snoring & breathing interruptions, that definitely helps with feeling rested.
Once in a blue moon my body decides to sleep about 9 hours longer than planned to catch up on missed sleep, but I either rarely feel particularly tired or I’ve been doing this long enough that I don’t remember what being properly awake felt like 🤷♂️
I certainly did. Rarely managed to get more than 5 - 6 hours sleep, spent half my time in an exhausted daze.
Yes it never gets better. If anything only worse. If you do somewhat adapt to at least rise quickly or on demand then you have trouble going back to sleeping in again. The only benefit is nights pay more, so make sure they pay you more.
