One of the downsides to shift work is the lack of appropriate sleep. If for instance, you work midnights you might have already found this to be true.
I worked that shift for many years. I liked it because I was never one for "crowds". Yet in the beginning I found it hard to get enough sleep before each new shift.
After being up all night I would come home and have to deal with the normal issues of living (family, bill paying, etc) and I might get to bed by 10 or 11 am, sleep (if I was lucky) till 4pm and then try to get back to sleep by 5pm. The problem is sometimes that sometimes I didn't get to bed till 7 or even 8pm because of family needs or other concerns. Then sometimes I didn't get to sleep at all.
Where I worked we had a name for people on Midnights, "Zombie People". Believe me it fit. After a few months of this shift I was talking AND walking with the dead!
Yet, this is the nature of the job. How then do you get your-z's?
STAY AWAY FROM ARTIFICIAL OVER THE COUNTER SLEEP AIDS IF POSSIBLE
Unfortunately, some dispatchers go the route of sleep-aids, or alcohol or, in the case of some, use other medicines made for other sicknesses to get to sleep. The problem with these "helpers" is that they can cause a dependence on their use, either physical or psychological and that can further complicate the problem.
The good news is that you don't need a sleep aid to get to sleep. You just need to do a few things to "train" your body to be able to rest when you need it.
The first is to look at your dietary habits. Specifically your intake of caffeine. Now I know it is the dispatcher's staple, but caffeine is a stimulant. Just one cup can stay in your system for up to 6 hours. Not to mention a whole pot of the stuff you might drink during a shift.
You don't have to give up caffeine completely. Especially if you are a heavy drinker of the stuff, but if you can curb your intake at least 2-4 hours before the end of the shift it can help a lot.
EXERCISE
(Ugh), Yep, that bad-word. But exercise doesn't have to be hard though. Just a little walk each day, a simple slow walk of 30 or more minutes can tap a lot of that excess energy and calm you down after the shift. Careful though that you don't try to walk within 4 hours of going to sleep.
WATCH WHAT YOU EAT!
If you eat a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, don't expect to get home and drift off to la-la land anytime soon. Your stomach takes an awful long time to digest those kinds of things and when your trying to get to sleep the last thing you need is a working stomach
A couple of more ways is to set a time everyday where you get to bed at the same time. "Yeah, right" I hear you saying. "I've got these kids, the hubby (or wife), and this and that..."
Well, how good are you to them if you are dead tired? The fact is that not getting appropriate sleep causes more harm than just making you sleepy. It can make you sick and even makes you more vulnerable to disease. Your body needs the rest to recuperate and recharge itself. Because while you are sleeping the body repairs the damage from the stress of the day. Cheat it and it's going to come back and bite you in the you-know-where.
Just pick a time. Coordinate with the rest of the family. You will be surprised sometimes how cooperating they can be. But when you set a particular time your body adapts to it more easily, and you will find that after a time you will be actually sleeping better.
Some other suggestions:
- Take a warm bath or soak in a hot tub.
- Lower the room temperature (a cool environment improves sleep).
- Don't "activate" your brain by balancing a checkbook, reading a thriller, or doing other stressful activities.
- Darken the bedroom and bathroom.
- Install light blocking and sound absorbing curtains or shades.
- Wear eye shades.
- Wear ear plugs.
- Use a white noise machine, like a fan, to block other noises.
- Install carpeting and drapes to absorb sound.
- Unplug the telephone.
Other suggestions: If you are rotating shifts, whether that is every 3 months, 6 months or even (yuk) 28 days, see if you can rotate "clockwise". That is from Days to Afternoons to Nights. This most accurately follows the Circadian Rhythm (24-hour cycle of wake/sleep) of your body. Many times Shift-Work insomnia is cause simply by violating this principle.
Got some suggestions of your own. Send them to us and we'll post them here so they can help your peers.
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