Any tips for working nights?

[Abraxaz1]

My tips are;
Get decent blackout curtains for the house.
Break up your meals, and have a lot of fruit.
If you can walking is your friend.
After last night set an alarm 3-4 hours after you go to sleep o.e 10 or 11am. It'll help your body revert back to normal and means you aren't a grumpy bugger all day.

 

[Scam]

After last night set an alarm 3-4 hours after you go to sleep o.e 10 or 11am. It'll help your body revert back to normal and means you aren't a grumpy bugger all day.

Yeah. Aim for a round 4hrs after your last shift. Set 15 alarms to make sure you get up. Do something that gets you out of the house asap (preferably in some daylight/sunshine). You'll be running on adrenaline for that day, but at least you'll sleep that night and be able to have a decent full day the next day.

 

[Begbie]

I work shift, so 2 days then 2 nights. If I plan to stay up for nightshifts I will stay up till 2-3AM after my last day shift then sleep in as late as possible.

Although, I normally just get up at normal time expecting to sleep for 4-5 hours in work. If that doesn't go to plan, I survive off coffee. It's horrible, but the sleep the next day is incredible

 

[Minstadave]

Welcome to the rest of your life Seriously though, after doing 5yrs of nights -- now I'm working 9-6pm days if I sleep through the night without waking then I'm over the moon. I'm very firmly in the camp of it's unnatural and has severe consequences on a person. Not to be a doom-monger or anything!

It's the OP who is just starting out, I've been doing nights for almost a decade

 

[Dr House]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I tried to take a small nap this afternoon but did not have much luck.

What job and grade will you be doing?

FY1/ FY2 in oncology, I'm lucky in that I have a CMT2 with me generally the SHO's are normally alone.

Med School teaches nothing about actually surviving life as a junior doctor and as a student you're not really that involved with the foundation doctors as they're too busy doing grunt work to teach/advise.

Yep, med school just filled your head with information it does not teach you how to really practice medicine that comes with the job.

 

[Minstadave]

Oncology isn't the worst house job, you'll be ok

 

[Dr House]

Oncology isn't the worse house job, you'll be ok

Yep, thats why I think I will manage a bit of sleep during the night. Its a nice chilled job for my first job.

 

[Minstadave]

I remember doing adult medicine ward cover at Addenbrookes as an FY1, bloody awful job.

 

[Dr House]

I remember doing adult medicine ward cover at Addenbrookes as an FY1, bloody awful job.

I can imagine, I'm in quite nice well run hospital and we are not too short staffed so the job is really quite ok. I manage to leave for home a 6.30 to 7 most days.

 

[Third Opinion]

I am off to do a 18:30-06:30 shift shortly. Haven't slept a wink since 9am this morning so this is going to be a tough one.

Bin men, communal gardeners and some bloke revving his car up has ensured no sleep for me.

 

[Abraxaz1]

I am off to do a 18:30-06:30 shift shortly. Haven't slept a wink since 9am this morning so this is going to be a tough one.

Bin men, communal gardeners and some bloke revving his car up has ensured no sleep for me.

Get yourself some sleeping tablets or foam ear inserts until you can block everything out.

 

[bowey]

I'm not a huge drinker but when I was on nights I just couldn't sleep through the days at all so soon as I finished at 7am I drove home and drank Stella to get me to sleep, worst advice ever mind but it got me a decent sleep everyday ha

 

[Soundood]

I can't imagine a doctor working on a night shift gets the opportunity to sleep half way through the shift so it doesnt sound like that

Junior doctor. Im not working alone for this set because I'm new but next time I will be alone (plus phone support from the reg)

yep, and doctors sleep on the job all the time, to be fair, they are lucky to get an hour in on quiet nights,

 

[Dr House]

Well first one is over. I woke up at 6 am yesterday morning and did not manage to sleep during the day. However last night was really quiet so I managed a couple hours of sleep between bleeps.

I feel sorry for the surgical SHO he was running all night.

 

[kaptainmarc]

That's pretty hideous. When I did my shifts I was swapping with one other person. We agreed rather than swapping every week we'd swap every 3 weeks so you could get into the routine a bit. By week 2-3 on either shift you could almost be classed as a normal functioning human being

I was swapping with one other bloke. we agreed who ever did the day shift hammered the work out so the night was as quiet as possible.

and managed to get a few hours kip after breaks on the nights due to no managers being around in my area.

got a great payslip that month though with all the overtime and extra night pay. It was a one off to catch up on stock