Nights?

shyviolet78, LPN, LVN · Dec 13, 2001

I work a stretch of 3 straight nights each week. The first day is 11p-7a, the next two days are 7p-7a. On the first day, I get up at my regular time in the morning, about 7am and then take a 2 hour nap in the evening, before getting ready for work. On the 2nd day, I'm a little more tired, so I'll sleep from 8a to about 3p. The 3rd day is Sunday and since I stop at church to attend mass before coming home, I don't get home til about 8:30am. I'll sleep from 9a-4p that day. When I get home on Monday, I'll either stay up all day with no sleep and go to bed about 7 or 8 pm or take a 3 hr nap and go to bed at my regular time, about 11pm. The trick is to make your room as dark and as quiet as possible. I tacked thick black sheets over the window to make the room dark. I have a sound spa machine, but I sleep so deeply with it I wake up feeling hungover. It's like it alters my sleep cycle or something. Sometimes I set the fan on the air conditioner to run non-stop to filter out noise; a small electric fan will do the trick as well, and they are pretty cheap. I don't take sleeping pills because when I wake up I feel really groggy and have to counter it with a ton of caffeine. Usually a big Dr. Pepper before work is enough to give my energy level a jump start and if I'm dragging during my shift, I'll have another soft drink with my lunch. Hope this helps!