I was tempted by a load of old tripe, or even codswallop, but rubbish is pretty good.

I haven't used that in ages. I must remedy that tomorrow.

Mark

I work nights. At present I have an 8 week recurring shift pattern and we have two nights on the second week, three on the fourth week and two on the seventh week. We also have two "relief" weeks were we often get nights- from one to four.

I normally get to bed between two and three o'clock on the afternoon before a night shift, sleep until about five and then get ready- my shift starts at 19.00 and finishes at seven in the morning.

I quite often get a cat nap- or two or three- some nights I've only survived with 10 minute kips here and there. I'm usually OK until I stop about two in the morning- then if I fall asleep, it can be hard to get going again. Most of the time when I have a patient, I'm fine but driving around in the wee small hours can be tough.

Depending on whether I sleep on the night shift I try to make it up to nine hours with sleep the following day and although some of my colleagues go to bed straight away and get up about 2pm, I tend to have some breakfast, walk the dogs and lounge around before going to bed around 10am or 11am at the latest.

The second (and third) nights are easier- providing I've slept well. Last year sometime I did four shifts for the first time in ages. By the third I was coping well and the fourth I was wide awake. On the fifth night (at home) I got up at midnight and went back to bed at about 3a.m.

I'll say one thing for working shifts. I've been to Florida and Mexico in the last four years and didn't have jet-lag at all coming home, so I put that down to having my body clock totally [LIFTED] with a few times every month. The first time I went to Florida in 97 before shift work, I was [LIFTED] for two days.

just shows how much you know

My first job out of Uni was in a post production house. We'd be expected to do 5 nights, day off, 5 days, day off, 5 nights.
It was hell.
I so don't miss it. In fact, after confusion about what time I was starting at on a day shift, they 'let me go'.
I've gone on to do night shoots after a day shoot, swapping a 7am - 7.30pm day for a 6.30pm start, finishing at about 8am. The drive home was an exciting one through central London too.

It's not a lot of fun, and unless your body is given a long enough period to adapt, I'm fairly sure studies have been done that show it's not very good for your health.


Source and a BMJ paper on it here.

thx prof I was looking for that very link, far from "rubbish" methinks

Yes, of course you were David.
It's one study that shows extreme shift work isn't good for you. Which is a far cry from what you stated earlier.

Mark

So, putting the stupid comments aside, I actually quite liked working the late shift. It was the adjusting (and then doing) the day shift that messed up my body clock.

Mark

We occasionally get a night shift onto a day shift- finish at 07.00 and back in the next day at 07.00.- on a relief week That is by far the worst. I sleep until about 13.30/14.00 and then get up, then from about 18.00, I am thinking about getting a shower and getting my stuff ready for the next day. It's a nightmare.

Otherwise, I don't cope badly with the switch from nights to days.

The police around here used to do a quick turnaround from a night shift finishing at 06.00 to an afternoon shift starting at 14.00.

Dammit. My plan was to stay awake until 10pm the very least and thrn have a decent sleep. Unfortunately after a well-deserved meal of a large portion of fish and chips, I needed a nap. My iPhone alarm didn't go off so instead of sleeping for one hour, I slept for six!

Ended up going to bed around 1am and awoke at 4am. What frustrates me the most was that if I had remained awake from 1pm till 6pm instead of sleeping I would have been ten times more productive than I was 6pm till 1am. Huge waste of a day.

Yeah Right! Bratty you were talking about "staying up late" but regular shiftwork and "staying up late" are completely different beasts, people who work regular shiftwork (and get on ok with the hours) don't sleep any less, or stay awake any longer than anyone else, they just do it at different times of the day. I went through a stage of actually getting more sleep when I worked nights than I do working during the day which completely blows your comment out of the water.

There are emploment laws about extreme shiftwork nowadays which should give you enough time off between shifts to recover, I used to work 5 nights and then have 4 days off (although running a business meant I was still inclined to work on my days off) and I did it for nearly a year before taking on another 2 regular nightworkers which meant I could work 4 nights on, have 2 days off and then work 4 days. My dad used to work 4 nights, 3 off, 4 days, 3 off in a rotating pattern and he loved it.

As with any situation, some people get on better with night work than they do day work, and some people can't handle night work. People are different (back to the 'biodiversity' again) so making blanket statements about "staying up late" which has stuff all to do with shiftwork doesn't 'prove' anything.

Besides which, the amount of sleep you need and therefore the early-ness of your bedtime has more to do with your "activity" period than it does anything else, which is why as people get older and (sometimes) more inactive, they require less sleep than little kids who are on the go from morning to night.