Push-Pull

I'll be going onto a shift change soon, and was hoping that some here can give me some pointers on how to make the transition as smooth as possible. As it is, I'm pretty much awake when it gets light out, and I think I'm going to have some real troubles getting past this.

Any ideas?

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"No laws, no matter how rigidly enforced, can protect a person from their own stupidity." -Me-

"Some people are like Slinkies..... They are not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." -Unknown-

DAMMIT! -Jack Bauer-

Jetée

Can you try to stay up half-an-hour to a full hour later each day until you are going to bed at the ideal time for your new work schedule? This is most helpful indeed if you have a week or two in advance to acclimate accordingly, so that is my recommendation given that I have this presumption of your situation in mind.

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Baraka_Guru

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. What time frame will you have for sleep? What is your current sleep time?

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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snowy

Are you switching from days to graveyard? That's a tough transition. Make sure that your bedroom is as dark as dark can be even if it's light out. You will need to convincingly fool your body into thinking it's night, though this won't really work. Your inner clock will end up screwy no matter what you do. You should stay up as late as you can, as long as you can, and get used to drinking coffee at incredibly odd hours.

Were you ever one of those people, perhaps in your younger years, that could just sleep at the drop of a hat? Take a nap or some such? Because trying to remember that ability may help a bit.

If all else fails, doxylamine succinate is a short-term sedative available over the counter. I find it puts me to sleep but I wake up without the grogginess that diphenhydramine HCL gives me.

Graveyard is the pits, but it wasn't as bad as the half-graveyard shift I worked throwing freight for Target one Christmas. I had to be at the store at either 2am, 3am, or 4am, depending on what we were getting in, so I would go to bed at 10pm with my SO like normal, get up, go to work, come home, and sleep some more. When I worked true graveyard, I would try and take an evening nap before work, then go to work, drink a lot of coffee, come home and sleep for about 4-6 hours. I could never seem to sleep more than 4-6 hours in the daytime without some sort of sleep aid.

Good luck!

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ASU2003

Force yourself to stay up all night so your body is ready to go to sleep at whatever time you want it to the next day. This also works for jet lag when traveling a long way.

It's also important to get your meal times switched over to the new schedule.

kurty[B]

This is what I do. When I arrive in a new time zone, or am flipping schedules I stay up for 24-36 hours, so I can go to sleep at the time I will need to BEFORE my schedule actually starts. That first day is difficult, but its the easiest for quick transfer of sleep schedule.

I definitely have to agree on the blacking out your room as much as possible if you sleep during the days.

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skizziks

I have always just went with it, didn't do any preperation. If I suddenly had to go from day shift to night shift, I would try to sleep a bit during the day, but I mostly ended up staying awake for about 24 hours, went home and crashed, and just dealt with it. Eventually I got used to it. The first day might suck, the next day sucks less, by the end of the week you should be "used to it," enough to where it isn´t such a bother, then it just gets to be routine. The body adapts pretty quickly on it´s own, you just have to let it.

hexrae

This is what I've done, but my shift changes occurred where I had the weekend to prepare. Going from the 9-5 on Friday to 2-10 am on Monday.

The first day is typically rough, but the rest of the week I'm fine. For the transition back, I just sleep extra long so that I'm back on schedule when I need to be.

Push-Pull

Thanks for the replies. I'll be going from days (7am~5pm) to swings (3pm~1am). I've done the dark room bit back when I did a few all nighters for astronomy, but I don't have that option anymore as the only room dark enough to emulate that will be in use by family staying with us. It shouldn't be too hard of an adjustment, but then I get cranky when I don't get enough sleep which is why I asked.

And yes, I was able to, and still can, fall asleep in like 2 minutes. Hope that works to my advantage!

__________________
"No laws, no matter how rigidly enforced, can protect a person from their own stupidity." -Me-

"Some people are like Slinkies..... They are not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." -Unknown-

DAMMIT! -Jack Bauer-

Vigilante

Yep. I'm actually doing that right now. Trying to move to a morning schedule, so I stayed up all night. Damn PC games...

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