[fyrfytrhoges]

i have just been offered a new job, unfortunately it will be 3rd shift. i am somewhat worried about adjusting to this change as i have worked 1st shift for the better part of the last 12 years, except for the fire department which is all over the place, alot of times i get next to no sleep at all then have to go to my fulltime job. any advice from you 3rd shifters?

 

[Permonic]

I once did 3rd shifts while working in a brewery. It was a summer part time job, so for such a short period it was ok and kinda funny. The shifts usually rotated every 3 weeks (first week 1st shift, second week 2 shift, etc...). However I couldn't adapted to it and I usually had to drink tons of tea in order to stay fresh, especially after several days of night working. On the other hand the full-time staff seemed to be quite accomodated to it.

There was a 20% bonus for a 3rd shift - a reason why some people offered to exchange it with those who didn't like working overnight.

 

[spaceman]

I've been working in the healthcare field for almost 16 years now, and all of it has involved shift work (all three shifts for me over the years). I did nights, 11-7 for three years (now doing 4 to midnight), and my advice to is to try and get to sleep as soon as you can when you get home in the morning. It is hard to do and get used to, but even if you have to take something (prescription) for sleep for a few weeks to get into a rhythm I would highly recommend that. I made the big mistake of staying up during the day when it was nice out, working around the house, etc, but I only got a few hours of sleep/day, and that is not good. Also, get some room-darkening shades, run a fan for ambient noise, and most of all, unplug your phone! I turned off my phone, but kept my cell next to my bed in case my wife needed to get in touch with me. Good luck.

 

[fyrfytrhoges]

thanks spaceman, sounds like good advice, im really nervous about this and ill probably have to get some "help" from the doctor for the first month or so.

 

[redshifter]

hoges,
you might want to try melatonin. nature made 3ml is a good brand. folks take it to reset their internal clock when travelling. i'm the type who needs like 6 advils to work, but one melatonin usually has me snoring in about an hour.
good luck on your new assignment!

 

[MexicanDragon]

I agree with the getting sleep part. Make sure you get plenty. If you can listen to music, it can be both a blessing and a curse. I LOVE listening to music. I've taken most of my collection to EAC/LAME/APS (well...about my most popular 3rd of the collection). I'll just burn a nice disc depending on my mood, and have a 40 disc slappa that I can hold 28 gigs of music in. Anyways, the music tends to put me to sleep after a while. Very bad. I have noticed talk radio is very good at keeping me awake, but audiobooks seem to be the best bet. Makes the nights fly by. (I work for the post office, doing data conversion. Its mind numbingly boring, and it takes most people 2-4 months to get adjusted to the 3rd shift). Also, I recommend energy drinks. You can do red bull or the like, but my fav has been the Omega by Fuze. I'm not sure if its still made since Coke bought fuze, but it was 16oz, and had a good taste to it. Sipping on that throughout the night worked well for me. Ephedrine helps on those really rough nights. I have a 22 month old that I keep for 8 hours after I get home from working third shift. I'm lucky if i get 4 hours a day...make sure you get around the same amount you usually do. G'luck!

**BRENT**

 

[john_jcb]

I worked third shift in a steel mill when I was younger and the advice to go to bed as soon as you get home is good. I would avoid coffee after 3-4 AM and have a light meal after work then go to bed. I also maintained a nocturnal schedule during my off days. This made it easier on the first day back to work each week. After a bit of adjustment I found that I enjoyed third shift. I would get up between 2-3 and go to work at 11.

 

[fyrfytrhoges]

good advice guys, although i think ill avoid the ephedrine and caffiene, i really dont like those stimulants, they seem to screw my cycles up more than anything but i may just check out some melatonin, thanks shifter.

 

[Ebonyks]

My advice is to find a sleeping drug that works well for you, i've got family who've worked third shift, and they never were completely able to deal with it (even after doing it for 20 years plus). Your sleep cycles will never entirely adjust to working third shift, but after some time it s

In your case, finding a good sleeping drug might be hard. I know your past experences with benzos (are the withdrawl effects of the klonopin finally going away? You mentioned it awhile ago), and given that the most effiective sleeping drugs are types of benzos (Personally, i find prosom the most effective, but it's rarely used anymore). Ambien may be helpful, as it isn't a true benzo, but it's fairly simliar, and you might suffer from some of the same problems.

Many people find benadryl useful as a sleepaid (It's the same thing in tylenol PM or tylenol's simply sleep forumla, so anyone on these can stop buying the brand names in favor of the generics and save a healthy amount of cash, the drug name is Diphenhydramine)

You could try melatonin, but i belive it interacts with benzos, so if you're still on the klonopin, i would definately do some research before taking it.

There are a few other sleep drugs that are useful. Trazadone is an anti-depressant that's known for aiding in sleep and is still sometimes used to aid in that. I also know of a few more exotic sleeping drugs. GHB (Yes, that GHB) exists in a pharmcutical form (I can't remember the brand name at the moment for it) and is an especially effective sleep aid, but getting a doctor to perscribe something like that is going to be pretty difficult. Your doctor would probably tell you to quit your job before handing out something like that.

I'd ultimately reccomend talking to your doctor before going through with anything. None of us here are professionals, and we can't give you the complete advice that one could

 

[NightWoundsTime]

I worked 3rd shift data entry for about 2 years. The audiobooks recommendation is a good one. Are you able to listen to anything at work? What is the nature of the job?

One thing that helped me a lot were Altoids mints. Start to get tired, you pop about 4 of those in at the same time

Way better than caffeine.

For sleeping, Melatonin never did much for me. I definitely had days where I couldn't sleep and it's pretty painful going to work the next night, so try to find something to get you through the first few weeks.

You will find yourself doing strange things. Once I was typing check payee information into a database, in other words "what you see is what you type". Drifted off and started typing out my dream. Boss comes up the next day with the printout like "what the hell?".

 

[dhwilkin]

Careful w/ the melatonin... it may or may not help you get to sleep, but every time I tried it, I had some really weird dreams!

 

[Bolt San]

I thought this thread was about going to third gear from first gear.
>_>

 

[raif]

me too, maybe something to do with "popping" the clutch into second.

By the way Bolt San, I grew up in Folsom, crazy to see someone here from my hometown.

 

[immtbiker]

I worked 2nd shift for 8 years, and loved it. I worked from 4-12, went to sleep at 2 a.m. (which gave me 2 hours of music listening, which was not affected by lawn mowers and barking dogs). I was up by 9 a.m. and had the whole day to play while everyone else was missing a beautiful day.
3rd shift is entirely different, and you become a lobster. You are up when it's dark, and sleeping when it's light. It messes up you natural rhythms, and most people become grumpy.
If you must work 3rd, then take a warm bath when you get home (which produces natural melatonan, in you bloodstream), and wind down, with a good pair of foam earplugs, so the daily noises don't affect your REM. Night shades are important, too.

 

[RYCeT]

I was doing double job, 3rd shift and 1st shift for almost 2 years. I have no problem sleeping. The only thing you'll feel, your weekend feel much shorter, because on sunday, you'll got to be ready to work. I also experience some weird thing too. One time on my night shift (Scanning & Data entry), I have no recollection of scanning job that I do for 30 minutes, the thing that make me awake because I heard my supervisor announcing the break time. I can't remember what I do about 30 minutes before but I sure do some scanning since my work load is on schedule. Fortunately, I don't screw up any scanner during that 30 minutes

add: my friends give me a nickname Batman during that time