Surviving shift work

In today’s world we are becoming more and more of a 24-hour society. Originally doctors, nurses, police, fire and ambulance officers and 24-hour factory workers were the only ones awake at night, but now airport staff, some stores and many other places are open 24 hours. While this is convenient for the customer and consumer, for poor staff staying up at that time of night it can be really bad for their health in the short and long term.

To avoid some of the system damage when working a night shift, you should try to get at least 8 hours of sleep. To do this, you need to take a few steps to help trick your body and mind into falling asleep.

First make sure the room where you sleep is as dark as possible. Blinds alone may not be enough, heavy curtains and even blocking out the outside light source will encourage you to sleep because it’s dark.

Second, cool down the room. Air conditioning is ideal for this. If it’s cold, you’ll have a much easier time falling asleep and staying asleep. A cool temperature will help trick the body and mind into its nighttime and bedtime.

Third: keep noise to a minimum. Make sure your partner knows how important it is that you don’t get interrupted and that the house is quiet. If you can’t keep the noise down, block it out with white noise, like your air conditioner, or use earplugs to block out the noise.

You may not always find that you can sleep eight hours straight. If you need to divide your dream. For example, if you’re working the midnight to 6 am shift, you can sleep from 6 pm to 11 pm and another batch from 7 am to 11 am (9 hours total). It is quite possible to do this for a long period, as long as a period of sleep is at least 4 hours.

Try to avoid taking sleeping pills as they tend to stop REM sleep and can lead to dependency.

When you’re at work, make sure there’s plenty of light in your workplace to help keep you awake.

Finally, don’t expect to do as much during your waking hours outside of work—even tasks like mowing the lawn will lead to more fatigue. Also remember that long-term shift work takes years off your life, make sure your employer is compensating you with an adequate pay package.