Shift Work Advice Required please

[frog's wife]

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

[aljenit]

[/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
• 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.

[Metal Head]

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

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 - 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).

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. 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.

Thanks once again to all.

Cheers
MH

[Rossluck]

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.