12 Hour Shifts

It's an adjustment to work 12 hr shifts but you'll get used to it in time. I started working 12hr shifts one spring, that fall I was accepted to nursing school and was able to handle m-thurs classes/clinicals and work F-Sun 12hr shifts at the hospital. Your body will adjust, give yourself some time.

Thanks RN&mom, I have only been doing 12 hour shifts since September, so hopefully it will get easier, my kids are grown up so thankfully I don't have little ones to tend to, so I'm able to be lazy when I want, and it seems like since I started this job that's exactly what 1/2 my day off is spent sleeping in late.

12 hr days are easy after 24 hour shifts (or even 48 sometimes) on an ambulance. 8 hour days actually seem too short now.

I would agree, you get used to them eventually. 12s on days were MUCH easier for me than 12s on nights. 12s on nights was easier when I was a tech/PCA in nursing school - cause I had a 15 minute drive to and from work...but when I worked 12s on nights as an RN, I had a 75 mile drive to and from work, which was a huge factor in making 12s way harder.

I worked 8s five days a week during orientation for my current job (6 months, over a year ago)... And 8s are nice enough, but you're stuck running all your errands etc between 4-6pm. I now work 10s. I find 10s the perfect compromise between 8s and 12s. Longer than 8s, but not as long as 12s (though sometimes I get stuck staying at work to 12 hours). And I still get a weekday off once a week! :)

I've worked 16-hour shifts. Trust me when I say that 12-hour shifts are nothing in comparison! You get use to it.

I applaud you all. I never was able to work 12 hour shifts, even when I was only25 years old. That would certainly put me in burnout.