A human's body was designed to be awake during daylight hours and to sleep at night. Many night workers have experienced difficulty in adapting to the changes in working at night and sleeping during the day.
There are no clear solutions to this problem but some good tips include:
- Adapting to your new life quickly by timing meals and other activities to match the new times - have your breakfast in the evening and your supper in the morning!
- You should exercise when you wake up as this will fool your body into thinking the evening is morning. You will stay awake for longer this way. This may mean doing your exercise at 10 o'clock at night when most people are start thinking about getting ready to go to bed!
- If you can, you should try to have a short nap in the middle of a night shift. This will help your concentration.
- One of the most common complaints about adapting to night shift work is the difficulty some people find in sleeping during the day. It is just as important to make your house quiet in the day. Your bedroom should have thick curtains and be away from noise. Ear plus and blindfolds might also help.
- You should eat smaller meals on a night shift. If you eat a big meal it will make you sleepy.
- On rest days, you should try to get one long sleep and then go back to your routine of waking in the day. This can be the hardest part.
