How to guide for night duty

I do hope you have not stumbled upon this blog post in a misguided attempt to seek advice on how to cope with night duty. If there's a secret to it then I surely haven't worked it out.

I realised recently that I have been working in care just over 3 years now and getting ready for work tonight had me thinking back on my first ever night duty. I was naive in a way that makes me laugh now. I started out as an academic PA and gradually started to take on other clients and somehow managed to hide from the office staff how completely unprepared college had left me for the practical realities of the work. The client I was assigned to work nights with was one of my first ever clients and I had never worked night duty before. I was sent an email detailing the client needs and my role there as a carer. I was down to work 11pm to 7 am and I remember reading it and thinking there wasn't 8 hours of work there so in my bag I packed pyjamas just in case. I never told the other night staff this so I robbed her of the opportunity to have a good laugh at my expense and I managed to keep the horror off my face when I discovered sleeping was not built into the night plan . That first night was tough but I learned some valuable lessons that helped me better prepare for future nights.

In the last three years I have worked nights in a variety of settings. At hospital bedside, semi waking in a house, in a busy residential unit and now in a community house.

I have learned a few things along the way. More coffee does not make things easier. Sometimes being over caffeinated means you can't focus on anything in the earlier part of the night and inevitably it will still wear off and you will feel like you might actually die of exhaustion  ( so far I haven't)
Also for me no caffeine after midnight. It doesnt seem to help me get through the night but it does leave me too wired to sleep the next day. I find having many cups of herbal tea  ( but not sleepy or relaxing ones) to be of more help because being hydrated helps .

Getting enough sleep after nights is the most important thing you will ever learn. I have a good magnesium supplement plus I've been doing a really good headspace exercise on getting to sleep and I'm really hoping to see a noticeable improvement in the quality of my sleep over the next two weeks. I have gotten better at sleeping during the day. It was something I really struggled with but not having enough sleep makes the next night duty 10 times harder.

Diet is another important one. The amount of times I have worked my way through night duty on a sugar high makes me pretty much an expert on this. I try to make sure I'm making better food choices before I start nights which makes it so much easier to stay on goal. If I sugar load on nights and in my free time then I feel more anxious and depressed and when you add sleep deprivation to the mix this does not make for a happy cocktail.

Then there's activity. My last round of night shifts  ( 6 weeks ago) was not great in that my gym attendance was poor and my step count was minimal which also meant I was not getting enough fresh air every day. Since I finished nights the last time I've made a conscious effort to walk more ( hitting my step count every day) and regularly attend the gym. This has all been good with the exception of snow -gate. Im hoping this will help me not completely fall apart over the next two weeks.

Then of course is the night duty itself. I find aside from between the hours of 3-5 ( the worst part) that the thought of night duty is worse than the reality. The busier the setting you are in, the easier it is to cope with the tiredness. In my current setting there is some admin and house work which you divide up accordingly to keep the night ticking over and then it's up to you to find strategies to survive the rest. I can't read on nights except maybe a magazine. Then there's doodling and maybe a bit of t.v. and trying not to watch the clock too much.

Maybe one day I'll crack the code to winning at night duty but something tells me tonight wont be the night

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