Not Sleeping Anymore!

[ekullerd]

After 5 years of being the queen of sleep on nightshift, meaning I almost always got 8 hours of sleep on work days and 10hours on off days, I am NOT sleeping.

My normal night shift life is home by 8am, asleep by 8:30a, awake by 4:30p, get up for work. When I get off and need to swap to days for my normal life I would sleep until 4:30pm get up eat breakfast. I would hang out with my husband when he got home from work at 5:30p, go to bed with him at 10:30p and sleep until like 5a or 6a the next am. Magically I was on dayshift, no problem.

Now...I go to bed on work days at 8am I wake up at 11a, noon. Cannot go back to sleep. CANNOT sleep. Take OTC medication cannot sleep. Off days I wake up also after about 4 hours of sleep.

And joy of all joys NO MATTER what I do to my sleep hygiene I wake up at 4am on off days, like wide awake. Since I work 7p to 7a this means I am up everyday from 4am to 8am.

I am a walking zombie! I am now crowned queen of being too exhausted to do anything but lay in my dark bedroom not sleeping!

Please help! Why did this happen all of a sudden to me??

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

The human body relies on the eyes for ques for wake and sleep. Light triggers the brain into thinking it is time to wake up (stay awake) and darkness triggers melatonin to make us sleepy. Night shift workers can trick the eyes thus tricking the brain by having bright lights while they are awake (a light box for 30 minutes is ideal when waking up) and wearing sunglasses home from work and blackout shades in bedroom to sleep to trick the eyes into thinking it is evening/ night. The body need a consistent schedule week after week to be able to regulate sleep. You are trying to flip back and forth every week and your body is revolting. Your schedule may work temporarily, but your body and brain will get all screwed up eventually which is happening now.

I spent 15 yrs as a sleep technologist and learned more than I care to know about sleep. I had a lecture in a class by Dr. William Dement who is the grandfather of Sleep Medicine. He gave us a copy of his book "A Promise of Sleep". A very informative book on how quality sleep is crucial to being healthy and productive.

The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's Sleep: 978

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

I can think of a couple of things that might be disrupting your sleep. You don't say how old you are and I will be presumptuous in assuming you are female, but this whole thing may be hormonal. If you are in the early stages of menopause the hormone shift can play hell with your sleep. I would start with a good physical and blood work then adjust your sleep hygiene until you find a good 6 to 8 hours of sleep. Also as we age our bodies require less sleep than we did when we were younger.

Hppy

[OlivetheRN, ADN, BSN, RN]

I'll agree with a PP about flipping back and forth wrecking havoc on your body. I understand how much it sucks to be on an opposite schedule from your husband, so on your off days you want to have a day time schedule. I did that for years. But I had to stop. Now I pretty much maintain a night shift schedule all the time, unless I'm getting ready to go on a vacation or something like that. I may go to bed a tad earlier and get up a tad earlier, but my body is a looot happier than it was when I was flopping back and forth.

I also found that I all of a sudden stopped sleeping well aka woke up after a few hours when I had underlying stress that was getting to me. It was my PCP who figured that out and suggested several different things such as exercise, journaling, etc, but after a few months of that not working, what did work for me was an established bedtime routine and a prescription from my doc. The routine gets me to sleep pretty much immediately, med helps keep me asleep.