[muffie]

night shift=evil

did cromagnon man do night shift ? [nope]

[rn/writer]

Originally Posted by muffie

night shift=evil

did cromagnon man do night shift ? [nope]

Yeah, and where is he today?

[cheerfuldoer]

Nightshift used to be my shift of preference (when I was younger), but cannot work that shift any longer. The last nightshift job I worked, I became severely ill within the first two weeks, and had to make a choice between my health/life, or leaving the job. I pleaded with HR to put me on days or eves, but they were too stubborn to do me a favor. That right there told me they use you up and spit you out on their terms, so....I resigned immediately, and yes...I was still sick when I resigned. I really hated giving up that job, but if I hadn't made that choice, I'd probably be dead today. Always choose life over death...no matter what.

[caliotter3]

All the negatives spoken about here have applied one way or another to me. Yet I will defend my preference to work night shift (as well as much of the rest of the 24 hrs that I can get, ah a 12 step grp for workaholics is sorely needed here!!!). I function better on nights. I have learned to like nights better and my body also seems to do better although, yes, I do have the HTN. But, guess what? I got older, I got sick, and my body betrayed me. I collapsed, mostly b/c I overdid it, not b/c of nocs per se. One job, one shift that is not all over the place, was what I needed. So now a good portion of why I am good and unemployed instead of being well-employed, is b/c I tried too much for too long. Night shift jobs are almost impossible to find and hold on to, b/c so many lazies take night shift jobs so they can sleep, screw off, and get paid for it. Too bad, but that's the truth. My best suggestion to you since your age and health are now talking as loudly to you as they did to me, is: try to cut back to PM shift, or even do rotating from noc to PM's. That way, you are only half way going to the opposite end of the spectrum. Good luck, and heed your body. Don't want to hear about you on the morgue report!

[ONSnrs]

I have always worked night shift, work being the operative word here...all night shifters do not sleep.
I really think it is a very individual thing because everyone/nurse is different, what is good for one might be lousy for another. I have hypotension so I guess if my b/p goes higher at night then I almost normalize, which is one reason I love it. Although it does reek havoc w/ your sleep schedule, my first day off this week is slept for nearly the 1st 24hrs and the second night that I had off I was up from 7p until now 7a, who know when I will sleep. I have noticed a considerable weight gain that I could definately do without also.
Being an oncology nurse, leukemic pt's mostly they are up all hrs of the night; recieving chemo, nauseated and puking or just trying to work through the psychological aspects of their disease. I find the night shift gives me a lot of quality time that I can sit down with them or comfort them when they are so sick from high dose chemo.

[erichRN]

There are good things and bad things about each time and length of shift worked. I enjoy working nocs, mostly because it's just me and my aides-- we work together with no interference (except for the occasional nasty note teeling us what a terrible job we are doing). Take the neagative things about your shift and try to deal with them. Make sure your sleep room is dark. Take an occasional sleeper. Use melatonin. If you get at least 6-7 hours good rest, your body will more than likely come around. Good luck.

[lannisz]

I can't wait to go back to nights. I have been oreinting on days and it's killing me! Getting up at 5am is just wrong. And there is so much noise and chaos on dayshift. I work OB and during the days there are literally crowds of family members in each delivery room, tons of docs around, scheduled procedures and "drop ins". Yes, there's plenty of work to do at night too, but it will definitely be more to my liking! Can't wait.

[tinderbox]

I HATE day shift. I think that I would be much more stressed, cranky, and tired if I had to wake up at 0430 in the morning to get ready for the dayshift chaos of families, families' endless questions, endless phone calls, managers, doctors and medical students, ... UGH. Gives me a headache just thinking about it. When I oriented on days, I was always tired, came home from work and would just go straight to bed. So it's not like I had any more of a life working dayshift than I do now. I love nights and I love my co-workers. And I love actually being able to do my work and not be interrupted every 15 minutes. And I sleep very well, too.

[locolorenzo22]

I've only worked nights 3 days after orienting on days for 3 weeks and I LOVE IT! It's much better than the day shift which was always EXTREMELY CROWDED and CHAOTIC! On nights so far, there have not been many families/doctors/excess people in hallway....
I've got the routine down, and understand what gets done when...by 11:30-3:00 most of what we do outside of regular duties is just answer call lights....
make sure utility rooms are clean, tech station is clean, hallways are clean, etc, room trashes are empty, linen bags are picked up, etc...
then 3-5:30 goes by quick because you get vitals on people you HAVE to wake up, then put on CPMs at 4, day shift gets report at 5-5:30 then you go home....
when there's around 20 patients that is optimum....30 is too much, 12 is too little, a lot of down time with some patients.....

[tinderbox]

Originally Posted by locolorenzo22

make sure utility rooms are clean, tech station is clean, hallways are clean, etc, room trashes are empty, linen bags are picked up, etc...

Wow! You guys have to do all that, too?? We usually have housekeeping that come around on nights to do all that. We're usually too busy charting, doing mars, patient care, etc... I hate that some hospitals think just cuz we work nights, that we can be housekeepers, too. I didn't go to college to empty trash cans. Sorry for the rant.