anyone on here do nightshift work? I may have to and never done so before so any advice as to how. Very confused example say I have to nightshift on friday then on thursday I try to sleep all day during the day? and so the sleep cycle is reversed? but then as I slept the night before id end up with having 24 hours sleep and not able to sleep during the day atall? how on earth does it work? seems pretty much impossible to me

Haven't done it for yonks, but if I were doing a nightshift, I'd try and get back to my normal sleep cycle as quickly as possible, so I'd just treat it as a late night. My shift would end at 6am, so I'd get home and go straight to bed, then wake up whenever I woke up, usually about 1. Others who had family and stuff would treat it more like a normal job and get home at 6, then sort out their kids and take them to school and so on, then have a bit of time then go to bed so they'd wake up, have a shower and go to work at 10pm. It really depends on your personality and how long you're going to do it. You'll need some experimentation to find out what works for you.

My situation was complicated somewhat by living in a shared house with students. I'd approach it in a completely different way now, hence me saying it depends on your circumstances and personality.

I used to do a week of nights in every 4 when I got my first job after uni.
It was horrible.
But yeah, like Tom, I'd start out treating it as a late night, then I'd get home about 9am-ish. Have a bite to eat, maybe catch up on anything that I needed to do like laundry, then try to get some sleep from about 11-12ish. Maybe get in 6-7hrs sleep.
So - get some sleep in the day time before your shift basically.

Used to do a late shift (2pm-2am) and loved it.
Getting home at about 02:30 wasn't so bad as I'm generally a night owl anyway.
What do you class as "night shift"?

Mark

For some reason I expected that of Paul.

Mark

I am lucky in that I can switch from days to nights without any problems. Mainly because I have no sleeping patterns. Getting brain damage to do it is not worth the risk. It does play havoc with a social life when you are sleeping when most are awake and vice versa. Coffee is a great way to keep going to start with then get to know how quickly it exits your system so that you can get to sleep quickly once your shift is over might help. If you discover that it lasts x number of hours then switch to decaff when you are within that x time limit. Then when you get to bed you will fall asleep quickly.

Having had five years of working with nightshifts featuring regularly, I still honestly haven't managed to adjust to it properly. My nightshifts ran from 8pm to 8am, starting midweek eg:

Mon 0800-1700 (ie a "normal" working day)
Tue 0800-1700 (ditto)
Weds 0800-1700 - I would stay up as late as possible, perhaps even have a nap as soon as I came home.
Thur 2000-0800 - first night shift. I would struggle and need to resort to caffeine. After coming home in the morning, I'd eat and then try to sleep. Only ever managed four hours.
Fri 2000-0800 - a bit better on this night
Sat 2000-0800 }
Sun 2000-0800 } on these two nights, I'd have adjusted. Still not sleeping more than four hours.
Mon 2000-0800 - getting a little knackered but still going
Tue 2000-0800 - struggling with the shift change.
Weds 2000-0800 - pretty much dangerous. But I have to carry on
Thurs -Sun off - need the rest to recover. I'd try and have a short nap (or avoid one) and then go to bed usual time.

I think the transitions are the problem. I can do it but it means a lost day as you transition from day to night or vice versa.

Back in 2011 every other week would be a night shift for me (19:30 - 05:00).

Here's my two weeks, day shift first:
Monday: Up at 06:00, work for 07:30, home at 17:30, bed ~23:00
Tuesday - Friday: The same.
Saturday: Generally random, it's a day off
Sunday: Up at whatever time, do a normal day, stay up late, usually to bed between 05:00 and 07:00 Monday.
Monday: Up at 18:00, work for 19:30, home at 17:00, bed by ~07:00 next morning
Tuesday - Friday: The same.
Saturday: Home from work, get some kip until about 13:00. Be grumpy. Get and early night.
Sunday: Up early. Normal day off stuff. Bed early, usually around 21:00.
Rinse and repeat.

I was lucky that my night shift was 12 hours difference to my day shift. I 'just' switched my body clock by 12 hours, though after 6 months of this we finally managed to put the night shift to rest as it was killing us all. Now I do the odd shift here and there, it might be a night or two, but it's fairly rare now, mainly for testing new software. I did some GSM-R testing back in October too, that was a week of nights.

Going from a day shift to a night shift I never found a problem, staying up all night doesn't really bother me, but going from nights to days was really hard...

Our daughters have to do nightshifts occasionally. They tend to get up normally in the morning (around 6), then go to bed mid-afternoon, then get up again for the nightshift.

Afterwards, they go straight to bed.

Once they switch back to days, as the others have said, they try and get back to the normal routine as quickly as possible.

I've worked night shift for more or less the last six years.
Is never been a problem on the rig as I don't have to worry about the normal domestic things most night shift workers do.
I always get up late and go to bed late. I hate getting up early and having to wait for hours to go on shift.

what exactly do you mean by that? sounds scary

also scary the fact that people at work today said the nightshift workers get paid 20 percent more as their life expectancy is a lot shorter if you work nightshift, this puts me completly off it now, does anyone worry about the effects of nightshift?

I used to work three shifts - 6am to 2pm, 10pm to 6am and 2pm to 10pm - or Days, Nights and Afters.

It was great, especially when finishing a week of days at 2pm on a Friday and not going back until 10pm on Monday. Of course, the downside was finishing 10pm on Friday afters and having to be back at 6am on Monday - it never felt all that bad though.

On topic:
Nights wasn't a problem - I'd finish at 6am but I wouldn't go to bed until around 2pm and get up about 8.30pm to get ready for work. If you're sensible, it isn't any more difficult than working a 9 to 5.

Irregular shift patterns are the killer.

My father was 64 and Group 4 would switch him about all the time (late, early, early, late, early, night, late, early, night etc.). He died a month before he was due to retire.