Working at Midnight shift - Miracle cures and methods for getting some dam sleep.

Michael Wade

Michael Wade

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Dec 18, 2019
Alright... So ive got a pretty sweet gig and im going to be working nights. I work 4 days in a row midnight, then I get three days off. The biggest pain in the ass for me is the transition period. I never could get more then 5 or 6 hours of sleep and I want to spend more time with friend's and family on the free days.

Ive done this before for something like 6 months. It never got any better and I just felt shitty more and more. Any cures? Im hesitant to take sleeping pills, but I am giving it some thought. I do have black out drapes.
 
A good winddown routine may help. Come home, dim the lights, have a cup of decaf tea or read a chapter of a book or whatever, and crash.

Melatonin may also help. Won't knock you out like a "real" sleeping pill, because it's a hormone rather than a narcotic, but can help get you into sleep mode.
 
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Choose a routine for work days that can be moved a few hours for days off.
Either getup early and go sleep as soon as you get in or get up an hour before shift starts and stay up till midday when you get in.
Then on days off move it a few hours so eg the early waker gets up at 11am instead 0f 3pm.
 
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Blackout curtains for obvious reasons. You're going to be pretty much living night owl mode so your social life with your daytime pals is pretty much going to be non existent. That's just the way it is. If your friends and family are cool with you just getting to see them at later hours then that works. You're just going to have to approach that sort of thing differently.
I pulled graveyard shift for a literal decade +
If I went to visit my parents or aunts/uncles it was generally me showing up later in the evening/night. Staying over doing my night owl stuff and catching them in the morning for things.
When it came to friends they damn well knew not to bother me until at least 6pm because chances are I was sleeping. If you're lucky you'll meet a bunch of other night folk and it isn't so bad.
Also you have to remember that Walmart and grocery stores aren't open 24/7 like they used to be. So you''ll have to plan your shopping accordingly.
 
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So I just recently quit a job where I worked midnights. It was one where I had to run around the building the entire day (it sucked for obvious reasons). Things I would recommend is one B12, especially when winter sets in because you will get very little sunlight. Getting a face eye cover because I found even with black outs I still found it hard to sleep. I would heavily recommend against sleeping with the TV on, I had a fellow midnight worker who would do that and they were always tired and groggy and “did not know why”.

I’d imagine the infos useless to you now because this threads a month old but just incase your still struggling

I come from a family of midnight workers so we all enjoyed it. It’s one of those things where your either built for it or not. Hopefully you won’t have the urge to toss all your coworkers into a box crusher like I did.
 
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I used to work 3pm to 9pm for one job and then worked another job from 11pm to 7 am. Went to bed by 8 am and then woke up 1pm. Repeat. For a year. Went crazy.
 
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I would recommend you to try out biphasic sleep pattern. As you work nights, you could go to sleep as soon as you come back for 4-6hrs, then get up and do whatever, and then have another shorter sleep before you go to work. Allegedly it was a standard pattern before industrialisation
 
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tbh I miss working overnights
but yeah your choice is "work overnights" and "hyuumon society"
you might be able to wake up early to hang out with people in the evening before you dip to work, that's about it
 
Black out curtains (they help with sound too if they have the thick painted side to them. Thumb tac them to the wall, don't just hang them on rods. That light will bother you.

Get things to muffle sounds as well, because people will be playing music or mowing their lawn.

There are stickers you can put on electronics to block LED light.

Eat at the same time every day. Go to bed at the same time everyday, and stop using electronics before bed. Do not eat right before bed either.
 
Demon King said:
There are stickers you can put on electronics to block LED light.
Click to expand...
I always just use a couple of layers of duct tape

also the do/dont eat is probably more of a ymmv thing, full belly make me sleepy
 
XYZpdq Jr. said:
also the do/dont eat is probably more of a ymmv thing, full belly make me sleepy
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I always felt eating before bed made me wake up a few hours later almost wide awake. Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep too because of it. I see it similar to alcohol, sure it makes you sleepy but the overall result is bad, and you wake up feeling the 3am/pm sips.
 
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