Shift Work Advice Required please

Hi,

I landed (pardon the pun) a new job in the aircraft industry a fortnight ago and I found out I will be working nights rather than days as I was led to believe. I was interested to know from experienced shift workers here, are there any tips (do's & don'ts) you could give me e.g. sleeping patterns.

You see I have never worked shift work previously let alone just nights so it is a new ball game for me. At least the pay goes a some way for the changes to my social life. I start tomorrow night (Sun) so the wife has suggested that I go to better later tonight (Sat) and get up later in the morning? Is this a good idea, or does it depend on the make up of the individual as to trying alternate things?

Thanking those in advance for their replies.

Regards
MH

Getting short naps whenever you can has been benefictial for many. For example, an hour or two just before you go to work in addition to whatever you got in the morning.

Getting home at 6am, and drinking 6-8 beers is what some people do...Probably not the best thing though..

Shift work is not too bad, but rotating shifts is a real pita. I used to do day, night, arvo rotating weeks, that sucks.

You should ensure your bedroom is very dark and quite for when you sleep during the day. If it gets very hot during the day, then A/C might be needed in the bedroom.

I would aim to get up late tomorrow, and possibly have a nap in the afternoon if you can manage it. The first night is often the worst.

Be careful, shift work can be a big strain on marriages.

Caffein can help, but be careful when you have it as it is really annoying if you get home at 6am and can't sleep.

Afternoon shift is good. You can still get to bed just after midnight, and have most of the day to yourself.

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Originally Posted by AV Elec

Getting short naps whenever you can has been benefictial for many. For example, an hour or two just before you go to work in addition to whatever you got in the morning. Getting home at 6am, and drinking 6-8 beers is what some people do...Probably not the best thing though..

If I had that many AV Elec I don't think I would ever wake up!! Actually I am hoping by doing just nights it will help reduce my beer comsumption. My shift starts @ 23.00 and finishes 07.30. So I won't be getting to bed until at least 8.30 - 9.30.

You should ensure your bedroom is very dark and quite for when you sleep during the day. If it gets very hot during the day, then A/C might be needed in the bedroom.

One of our bedrooms has A/C that I will use on a hot day but the negative is that we have recently had new neighbours and they have a 6 month old child who has trouble keeping quiet for more than an hour all around the clock. So I will use another bedroom that you cannot hear her from.

I would aim to get up late tomorrow, and possibly have a nap in the afternoon if you can manage it. The first night is often the worst.

Thanks for that

Be careful, shift work can be a big strain on marriages.
I know that is true given a couple of friends relationships, broke up because of it.

Afternoon shift is good. You can still get to bed just after midnight, and have most of the day to yourself
I don't think this would be a marriage breaker for us but our week night social life would be out. This is part of the reason for opting for nights rather than afternoons.

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Cheers AV Elect for your advice

Regards MH

I worked at the Tooheys bottling plant in Sydney. I don't know if there was anyone there who wasn't divorced, some 2 or 3 times!

A combination of high comparable incomes, and not seeing their husbands very often, seemed to make many of the wifes stray...

Getting sleep when you can is the key. Even cat naps in the afternoon help.

Brother does shift work. Lots of nights.
Darkens room with ouside curtains, has air conditioning. We tryto avoid phoning and let him phone us.

I did nights for a while, hated it but then I hated the job anyway.

Weekends were the hardest as Id slip back into my more natural diurnal cycle. I can only other advice, learn to nap (you will). Protect your sleep times so you get into a rhythm, ie dont think you can spend the day watching test cricket and expect to catch up the next day, you cant. Create an environment for sleeping dark room, cool etc.

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Originally Posted by artme

Darkens room with ouside curtains, has air conditioning. We tryto avoid phoning and let him phone us.

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Yep!!!!
Yep!!!!
Dark Bedroom,
Sound deadening Curtains:2tsup:
Air-conditioned.

KILL the F PHONE Big time, when sleeping.
give them your email address.

I used to get 1/2 Hour to an Hours SLEEP IMMEDIATELY before leaving for work, worked for me.

You might have to experiment with you sleep and Wake patterns before you get what suits you best.

Where I work, Some stay awake until 6-8 hours before going to work.
Though they work 2 Days, then 2 Nights, 12 Hour Shifts.
Me?
Days, 7:00 - 3:30 M-F..............Miss the Arvo Shifts.

Hey

I did twelve years shift work and this worked for me.

After night shift wear sunglasses as soon as the sun starts to come up.

Have a light breakfast when you get home (or before you leave work if thats possible, no stimulants but some water or juice.

Sleep in the darkest possible place. We had a large cupboard under the stairs that was as dark as night and I slept in there. Quite and dark. Set the alarm for 8 hours or whatever you normally sleep. Dont oversleep and get up once you wake.

good luck

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Originally Posted by dazzler

.................After night shift wear sunglasses as soon as the sun starts to come up...............

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This is really important as your body resets its internal clock when you are exposed to strong light after being in darkness for a number of hours. Just like battery chooks are fooled into thinking that they are experiencing a new dawn and thus lay an egg via artificially regulated periods of light and dark your body clock is regulated by dark and light.

Mick

If your doing straight night shifts you need to wake up late as possible, then eat like its breakfast time... eating throughout the shift as if its a normal day.
Then after knock off go home and stay up for a few hours(good time to be here on the forum...)in a darkened room or under artificial light, this will help you sleep for 7~8hrs, if you sleep soon as you get home you will get a low quality sleep of only several hours. This will compound by the end of the week(been there done that)and leave you burnt out.

Moral of the story is treat it like your working day work... just starting at a later hour.

For your first night shift, the night before stay up late as you possibly can dont be scared of exersizing up late either(this helps to get a long sleep), then sleep till at least 3~4pm.

Oh and stay away from coffee only have it around the time you get up... otherwise you will repeat "will" become an addict.

I've been a shifty for 14yrs now:(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harry72

If your doing straight night shifts you need to wake up late as possible, then eat like its breakfast time... eating throughout the shift as if its a normal day.
Then after knock off go home and stay up for a few hours(good time to be here on the forum...)in a darkened room or under artificial light, this will help you sleep for 7~8hrs, if you sleep soon as you get home you will get a low quality sleep of only several hours. This will compound by the end of the week(been there done that)and leave you burnt out.

Moral of the story is treat it like your working day work... just starting at a later hour.

For your first night shift, the night before stay up late as you possibly can dont be scared of exersizing up late either(this helps to get a long sleep), then sleep till at least 3~4pm.

Oh and stay away from coffee only have it around the time you get up... otherwise you will repeat "will" become an addict.

I've been a shifty for 14yrs now:(

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What Harry said.
My first job after finishing my apprenticeship I worked shiftwork for 10 years then next job shiftwork for 8 years.

Try to keep to as normal pattern as possible. Wake up - go to work - come home work around the house / watch TV etc - go to bed

woodcutta

G'day.
I did 18 years of rotating shiftwork.

All the above apply.

I would get home at 8am and stay awake until 11 or noon. then sleep until 6 or 7pm. get and have tea with the family. watch TV until 10. get an hours sleep then get ready for work.
A/C is an absolute Must in summer.

Metal Head,

Like nearly everyone says. Treat it like a day job. When you get home, stay up ..do things...have dinner at 9 to 10am then get to sleep around 3 to 4pm...get up at 9 to 10pm and have breakfast.

Get into this routine and don't for a minute think you do someting else and it will be alright. This is the routine (lifestyle) you will have to have. After a while you will get used to it.

You didn't say whether you were marrired/girlfriend or not.

I did shift work for 25 years and I was married at the time (since divorced twice - don't let that put you off though) just do more with your partner on weekends as you will have a lot of time during daylight hours to do quite a bit.

Steve

all it was on ships until the 90's for engineers was shiftwork , mate its all in the head get over that and you can sleep on a barbed wire fence at noon , mind you it takes several years to get use to it .
Now I can catch 10 - 20 -60- minutes whenever just switch off and it doesn't matter what the light or noise is .
But as this is your first go at shiftwork go with the darkend room , ear plugs ( foam ) and a quick 6 pack or that other thing you and the misses do . before retireing :rolleyes:

MetalHead

This is all spot-on advice. Six years permanent night shift for me. Get used to feeling tired pretty much all of the time.
I used to have breakfast at work as late as I could and go to bed as soon as I got home, just couldn't stay awake any longer. Wake about 1pm and then another couple of hours prior to going to work.

Be real careful driving home, tired drivers apparently have slower reaction times than drunk drivers, I found myself nodding off at the wheel more than once:o:o

Also, heartburn.... Mylanta or Quick-eze may become your friend, something to do with your body clock being turned upside down.

You will either fall into it easily or do battle with it to the end, I know blokes who have worked nights for decades and are quite happy with it.

I found for my partner when his turn for night shift comes around was that he'd argue that it was 10 days out of his life. nothing happened except struggling to sleep, struggling to stay awake.

What made a difference to his state of mind was scheduling some kind of activity in the daylight. His preference was to sleep for 5 hours immediately after getting home, then get up for 5 hours and get out of the house, take the dog for a walk, do some exercise, build something, demolish something, Achieve Something. then go back to bed from 5pm to 9.30pm. Make sure you make time to spend with your partner and get some fresh air and daylight. Vitamin D is important. You dont want to end up with a deficiency which can have depression like symptoms. hard enuff to deal with nightshift as well as being depressed!

Sonja

[/LIST]Hello there, I hope you enjoy your new job:)
Here are some of my tips for surviving Night duty.

• Drink plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated
• Eat Low acid,non-fatty foods to avoid heartburn.If you get heartburn mylanta or gaviscon might help your symptoms.If all else fails a GP could prescribe medication to decrease stomach acid
• Don't sleep right up until you go to work,otherwise you really do only work & sleep. (Especially if you are on permanent nights).You need to do something to get some fresh air,exercise & socialising.
• Ear plugs, because the neighbours do their lawns at 0800hrs Saturday morning whether you are sleeping or not.It's their day off remember:C
• TURN-OFF the phone,Mobile & DOORBELL. Putting a sign on the door can help.
• If you are a poor sleeper now,Night-shift won't fix it. Get a routine going. It could take 2-3 months,but will be worth it.

Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to share their experiences and advice:2tsup:.

Given the vast range of replies it is obvious that not just one thing works for everyone and I suppose I will have to do a few try outs to find out whick one uits me. I got straight to bed - I apologize the wife left some washing for me to put outside first:rolleyes: - once I got home. I then got up at 11.30 as I couldn't sleep anymore. Since then I have done a few things around the house (too warm outside for me today - 34*c) and jumped on the computer an hour ago. But I am starting to flag again so I will go off to bed again shortly (I am a big believer in doing what my body is telling me - now keep the replies clean:U).

Frogs wife (Sonja) - I suffer from depression (severely at times) so night shift won't make it any worse than it already is - well I'm hoping not:U. but this isn't the reason for not going out in the sun today it's just the temperture (or more to the point the sun's uv rays) which don't agree with my lillywhite (Pommie) skin. At least I won't get burnt working outside at night:doh:.

Thanks once again to all.

Cheers
MH

I know you have enough advice now MH, but I just want to add my two bob's worth after once doing 7 years of rotating shift at Mt Isa Mines. Everyone's different and how you handle nighshift will be different from how others handle it (bit of tautology there...).

I hated it, and spent a lot of time trying to sleep in the day so that I didn't feel like crawling into a dark corner at work.

Things that helped me: (1) caffiene is the obvious one; get it into you (2) mint lollies or PK chewing gum or cough lollies, anything with a bit of menthol or "heat" can really clear your head and "wake you up a little" at that terrible time around 4 AM.

Good luck with it.:)