WileyCoyote
01-13-2008, 06:04 AM
Well, Msta, it helps if you are a "night person"! However, you can reset your internal clock in this manner:
1)Get room darkening shades in the room where you sleep. No light. At all. That is your cave. You do not go there to watch TV, eat, or do anything but sleep.
2) When you come home in the AM, do not eat.(Eat heartily at your lunch break on shift.) Do not eat sweets or drink coffee the last half of your shift. Set your alarm for as late as you can sleep that day.
3) Do not watch TV (AM TV is geared to wake people up, not put them to sleep) or listen to the radio or music. If you need to relax first, a cup of herbal tea while reading a few pages of a book (NOT a newspaper) can help.
4) Take a slow shower, as warm as you can stand it, or a bath. Crawl into the bed, think about how tired you are, and will your body to relax in stages or sections, starting with the feet. Breathe slowly and deeply. Concentrate on anything that makes you quiet; a snowstorm, rain (sometimes those tapes will put you out!); don't let your mind wander to work or anything that you "need" to do today. Sufficient to the hour... Relax. Do not have a phone set anywhere where you can hear it to wake you.
On weekends and days off, try to keep close to the same schedule as you do when you work. Every weekend that you try to not "be a vampire" will upset your clock.
I worked the graveyard shift for many years, and I enjoyed it... I had time off in the afternoons to do things that no one else did, I was always going the opposite direction of traffic, and I learned the value of "me" time.
1)Get room darkening shades in the room where you sleep. No light. At all. That is your cave. You do not go there to watch TV, eat, or do anything but sleep.
2) When you come home in the AM, do not eat.(Eat heartily at your lunch break on shift.) Do not eat sweets or drink coffee the last half of your shift. Set your alarm for as late as you can sleep that day.
3) Do not watch TV (AM TV is geared to wake people up, not put them to sleep) or listen to the radio or music. If you need to relax first, a cup of herbal tea while reading a few pages of a book (NOT a newspaper) can help.
4) Take a slow shower, as warm as you can stand it, or a bath. Crawl into the bed, think about how tired you are, and will your body to relax in stages or sections, starting with the feet. Breathe slowly and deeply. Concentrate on anything that makes you quiet; a snowstorm, rain (sometimes those tapes will put you out!); don't let your mind wander to work or anything that you "need" to do today. Sufficient to the hour... Relax. Do not have a phone set anywhere where you can hear it to wake you.
On weekends and days off, try to keep close to the same schedule as you do when you work. Every weekend that you try to not "be a vampire" will upset your clock.
I worked the graveyard shift for many years, and I enjoyed it... I had time off in the afternoons to do things that no one else did, I was always going the opposite direction of traffic, and I learned the value of "me" time.