night shift

[ilovemarkb]

i'm doing my first ever night shift (7pm - 7.30am). Not sure what to expect. Ive been told to maybe bring some energy drinks for my first night. Strange question but do shift workers normally have a meal....cant imagine being hungry in the middle of the night! thanks

[237SJ]

Yes, you will probably need a meal. If you are up and about in the middle of the night you need to eat because you are using energy. If you have access to a tea machine that might be better than energy drinks. You will probably fade at about 4am but perk up when it starts to get light outside.

[Quassia]

Take a sandwich .. you 'will' get peckish!

[anneasquith]

4am-5am, you may crave sugar . IME

[janzman]

Is this a one off shift or the start of a regular night shift?If its a one off youll be all over the place,your body clock will tell you you should be asleep but you cant be.If its the start opf a regular shift then after a few sfifts your body clock will adjust and all will be well.At my work there are colleagues who work rotating shifts earliers,afternoon and night.I dont know how they do it.

[owdhamer]

A mate of mine worked regular nights and ate little while on shift.When he arrived home he used to cook a meal with all the trimmings, drink a bottle of wine then go to bed, as he would do workimg days

[237SJ]

owdhamer - I bet he had a headache when he woke up though!

[owdhamer]

He was an headache at times

[albaqwerty]

My OH ate a breakfast when he came home and a dinner before he went out. The night/-shift was only for six months but a right royal pain.

[ilovemarkb]

wow! fast response! i'm working on a stroke ward (student) i'm doing wed and thu this week and next week mon tue and wed....hopefully back to day shifts afterwards!

[237SJ]

When I work at night I make sure that I never go to work hungry. If you eat at about 6pm, you shouldn`t need to eat until about 3 or 4 am. If you have a nap during your break during the night, a cup of tea and a chocolate will wake you up but you will need something more substantial a little while after. Maybe poached egg on toast or some other such thing either before you finish work or when you get home. If you get home and you don`t eat, you won`t be able to sleep due to hunger.

[ilovemarkb]

ok thanks! Ill make sure i'm prepared! thanks for all replies!!

[paddywak]

I worked three shifts at the pit for nearly 30 years, and for most of that time all I ever took for snap was a bottle of water, a bag of crisps and a few biscuits usually digestives,but it was straight into the canteen for breakfast or dinner at the end of the shift.I suppose a lot depends on what you are doing and the working conditions, when you were underground for instance the heat and humidity in parts of the pit sent most things of very quickly

[anneasquith]

paddy, did you work in the coal mines ?

[scotman]

I have only worked nights once in my life. It lasted about 3 months continuously.

I found going to sleep immediately I came home was best for me although I found this difficult; you may be different. I got home about 8:00 am and eventually resorted to tacking bin liners over the bedroom window to cut out all the light.

Also some contractor was re-laying gas mains in the street outside which didn't help.

You need to figure out what suits you. Nobody can give definitive answer.

[paddywak]

Yes anne as I said for nearly 30 years, started as an electrical apprentice from school and end up as a shift charge engineer, I thought I'd a job for life, which just goes to show

[anneasquith]

paddy, if i had a hat, i would take it of to anyone who worked in the pits.

[paddywak]

Well anne at the end the conditions had changed so much even I find it hard to believe, the first face I went on was a 300yd x 3ft high "hand filled" face with props and bars, litererly hundreds of Jacks and girders with a man every 20 or so yards throwing the coal onto the belt with shovels. The last was 5m with fully automatic supports and a million pounds worth of coal cutter and and quarter of the work force producing three times the coal, but having sid that anne and most ex-miners will tell you the same we don't miss the pits but the men you worked with were something special and I do miss that

[ELVIS68]

I`ve been doing night shifts for nearly ten years, at first your body will not know what is happening to it but eventually it will get used to it once you get into the nightshift sleep pattern