Shift Work Ruined My Sleep
Don’t let the day- walkers fool you, there are 24 hours in a day
I was working a Monday through Friday office job during a period of my life when I needed a break from EMS. After about a year and a half, I felt the itch for patient care again and applied at an emergency room.
I had some experience as an EMT and dispatcher, and decided to try something different. Although I applied as a day shift ER Tech, I was offered a night shift position. I really wanted the job, so I took it. I’ll never work 1900- 0700 (7pm- 7am) again, but I am so glad I started on night shift.
When I worked a regular, set schedule, my body would get sleepy on its own at 10pm and I had no sleep issues. My first night in the ER, I was yawning at 10pm and still had nine hours to go. I had this bright idea that I would stay up at night on my nights off too, so I wasn’t constantly flip flopping my sleep. Sure enough, my circadian rhythm changed and I would be awake just as I was on my work nights.
Coming into work at night meant battling rush hour traffic about an hour after I woke up. We would all get thrown into our shift with the ER already busy and crowded with grumpy patients that were sick or injured and sick and tired of being there. As the night wore on, we would get more and more patients cleared out and cleaned up the “mess” for day shift.
Working at night had its perks, such as lack of upper management. I really bonded with my night shift family too.
Night shift also meant the general public had more time to get into mischief, such as drug use, drunk driving, and injuries from doing things around the house. Emergent mental health patients also had all day to decompensate before reaching their breaking point. Often they would come in by the police, for their own safety.
We’d get more elderly patients to come in at night- sometimes they’d get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and fall. Also, geriatric patients would sundown- meaning they would become more agitated, restless or confused at night. Daytime patients could become totally different people at night for this reason. Keeping a determined little old lady in bed is actually a lot harder than you would think- I would often have to sit next to them to keep them safe and they can be so strong!
Working nights taught me that there really are 24 hours in a day. I’d eat breakfast at about 6pm, lunch at 1am and dinner about 8am after showering and crawling into my pajamas. I distinctly remember sitting on the couch after work one morning, eating ribs, and my husband woke up and blearily looked at me with a confused look on his face. Trust me, there is nothing wrong with eating ribs at eight in the morning.
You can also *totally* go to the gym at midnight, hit up an ATM at 11pm, go grocery shopping at 3am, have a beer at 9am, as long as you’re safe. I also enjoyed the alone time I would get- I repainted three rooms while my family slept. People that have never worked nights don’t seem to understand this. Unfortunately the world revolves around day shift workers. You can’t go to the bank or make a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the night.
I will never work a 7pm- 7am shift again, because it was so hard on my body. I worked nights for almost a year, and was vitamin D deficient. My hair was shedding and the inside of my teeth hurt. I would sleep about ten to twelve hours on my nights off because anything less than that didn’t feel restful enough. I’d drive home with the sunrise in my face. Even with blackout curtains, there is something totally unnatural about falling asleep after the sun has come up.
I would use both melatonin and benadryl to fall asleep. One time I didn’t medicate myself and had to give up around noon to take my sleep aids. Our circadian rhythm is partially set by our bodies seeing sunlight. Every morning I would put my phone on silent and I didn’t care if someone needed me- if my phone wasn’t on silent, I would get woken up several times by text messages and spam phone calls. I already had to deal with neighbors cutting their grass or delivery drivers knocking on my door. On the other hand, it was very frustrating that friends and family would never call me. Despite me explaining that “if the banks are open, then I’m asleep” and “I sleep with my phone on silent, you won’t bother me” they wouldn’t call.
Eventually I shifted to a 1500–0300 (3pm to 3am) work schedule and that made a HUGE impact in my life. I would fall asleep without medication by 5am, and woke up feeling rested by noon. I loved that I became a healthy, functional person again and was able to spend most of my shift with my night shift family.
Now I work PRN and usually pick up between 1100- 2300 (11am- 11pm) but I’ll always love my night shift family and remember the experience.
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