So ive been on nights for about a month and it has made me the laziest SOB. I tried staying awake when i get home at 8am and then going to bed at 3pm to be at work at 11pm . Ive tried sleeping as soon as i get home and waking up around 3ish. It never works. its just getting worse and worse.

Ive had the past 2 days off and ive slept all damn day and night and i wake up feeling just as tired when i went to sleep. I went to bed at 945pm last night and passed out within a few minuets. I just woke up at 230pm. The thing is the only reason i woke up was because my dog needed to go out and they are doing yard work downstairs so its loud. If it wasnt for those im sure i would have slept till 6pm when my wife got home.

I set alarms. I set three. My phone and two clocks. I have to get out of bed for the 2 clocks but i never remember getting out of bed to turn them off!

Anyone else every have problems with night shifts? Im thinking i should go to a doctor so maybe he can recommend to my first shirt that i be put back on days.

 

lol geesh dude ur all outa wack...

but night shifts shouldnt throw u off that bad...

 

I remember i had to work night shifts at a warehouse place for awhile...it wouldnt be so bad if it werent for the fact that i did it during winter (in canada, so i dunno if this would apply to many of u) where the sun doesnt come out til like 9am and its dark by 5pm. id wake up at 6, look outside to see it pitch black and have no idea if it was 6am or 6pm. threw me for a loop the first couple times.

 

are you out cold from the time you fall asleep to when you get up, or is the sleep real ****ty?

also make your room PITCH BLACK close doors cardboard or whatever you have to do to the window.

I went through the same thing plus 15 credit hours of engineering. basically you turn into a zombie and ish. I would give yourself at least 8-10 hours of u interrupted sleep, dont expect to do anything during normal business hours.

I always went to bed as soon as i got home, and woke up whenever, never did get enough sleep.

 

We have blackout curtains and the door is shut. Im out cold almost as soon as i hit the pillow and its a deep sleep(hince the no memory of turning alarms off). OPn a bad day it takesa me about 3 minuets to fall asleep.

As far as things ive tried.

Sleep as soon as i get home=doesnt work
Do normal things when i get home and go to bed around 1-3pm=doesnt work
sleeping for 3-4 hours when i get home, getting up, and sleeping for 3-4 hours before work=doesnt work since i cant even wake up at noon anymore.
Im going to try and open the blinds when i get home as well as leave my door cracked. Im also going to set my alarm and throw it under my bed so i have to dig for it.

But yeah i plan on going to a doctor in a week or two. Of all things ill get a little bit more pay when i leave the military if i have a sleeping disorder now. Im already getting some for loss of hearing points in my left ear.

 

so what exactly are you tryin to fix man? youre sleeping pattern? ive got tons of solutions for that that ive used over the years. We seem to be on a similar schedule except im of course up for no reason and i cant sleep during the day. I wish i had a night shift to blame on it.

 

Haha im trying to fix me not waking up to anything less than a nuclear explosion(which at that point i wouldnt want to wake up) haha

I have no issue falling asleep. Its the waking up part that im having an issue with. While most people are okay with being lazy after two days of nothing but sleep i feel like ive wasted two days of my life.

 

haha ah well thats something ive yet to figure out myself then. When i end up falling asleep around this time or on the weekends when i dont have to be up i can sleep till 2-3 in the afternoon tryin to catch up on all the hours ive missed and while it feels great i also feel like a useless pos. If you get up right after you wake up naturally for the first time and move around or look outside and get some sunlight youll feel the best and most awake. Your sleep memory is like 2 weeks or something though so you have to get a normal amount of sleep every night for about 2 weeks straight and then maybe youll be able to wake up easily after however long it is you sleep for. Ive finally got my ambien back so on nights when i take it i get a much deeper and less restless sleep and its a lot easier for me to wake up as well. Quality instead of quantity seems to work better for me. Of course as i was trying to go to bed tonight i get a call from the damn ex gf at 4am and im just getting home now so i probably wont be waking up for **** till this afternoon either.

 

When I was going to college I worked 40+ hours a week in a steel mill on nights, leave there at 7am and go to class until 1pm or 2pm depending on the day. Go to my apartment shower and sleep until my GF I lived with at the time got home or made supper about 6ish every night, take a half hour power nap and do it all over. I did that for about 15 months and the first month and a half I was not a pleasant person to be around, ever... on my days off I would sleep like a bear in hibernation.

After that first month and a half of my body readjusting to the new schedule I was back to my normal chipper self, slept normal hours when I could. I always had the problem of falling asleep and my gf always woke me so that wasn't an issue.
Give yourself sometime to adjust especially if you've never done nights and have been pulling day shifts for your whole carreer. It'll be a beetch but it will get better, at least it did for me.

 

I don't work night shifts but I have chronic Insomnia (always had it) so I fully understand your going nuts.