The night-shifter’s survival guide
by liambassford
Mostly because of work, I have fallen into freakish, nocturnal sleep habits. I love the night life, but admittedly it isn’t entirely biologically natural. These are some tips I’ve found to perform to a high standard on the graveyard shift, while still preserving my sanity and humanity while off-duty. Read on…
But where am I to locate an adequate supply of hartshorn to distil into an inhalant worthy of the honourable Conklin pedigree when the guv’nor’s jackboots have confiscated our firearms
Sleeping
No matter how well-rested you are, fatigue will absolutely, 100% set in at some point in the night. You are up and at ’em during the witching hour, which is a very unnatural thing to do with your body; also, your job is probably not very social, which is not a great thing to be doing to your brain. Unfortunately, few employers encourage sleeping on the job, unless you’re a firefighter–hey-o! So you’ll want to get that part out of the way off the clock.
Since your sleep cycles are determined by light, you’ll need to bully your own pineal gland into compliance. To that end, you’ll need to black out your room with heavy curtains, or at the very least put on a sleep mask. Spring for a good one, although they pretty much all suck. You might also want a plug-in timer for your bedroom light, synced to your alarm clock, so that you don’t have to wake up in the pitch-black, not that I do this, because I hate myself. Earplugs can help too–just make sure you can hear your alarm!
It’s good practice to avoid using your bed for anything except sleeping–don’t read there, don’t eat there, especially don’t use your phone or other screens there. The goal here is to create a 1:1 association between your bed and sleep, so that with any luck, you’ll pass out as soon as you hit the deck. (You can make exceptions for sexual activity, if you’re an amoral pervert who enjoys engaging in illicit trysts in a bed.)
See below for information on chemical sleep aids.
Eating
Even if you live in a big city, your 24-hour food options will be limited. I don’t try to force any specific eating schedule on myself–I’ll eat dinner foods before work, breakfast foods after, bodega sandwiches at 10pm, who cares, we’re all gonna get atherosclerosis and die anyway. The one constant is that I always come in on a full stomach. I happen to not get a scheduled lunch break at my current job. But even if you get one, what the hell are you going to do, prepare your lunch in advance and eat it halfway through your shift, like a chump? Much better to show up fed.
Seriously, since doing funny things to your sleep can also do funny things to your appetite, and shift work puts you at higher risk for diabetes and cardiovascular problems, I would also start counting calories. To keep it simple, I log mine per calendar day, midnight to midnight. If you really give a shit, you can even calculate your BMR, and fine-tune your caloric intake to stave off weight gain. Who do you even think you are?
Leading a normal social life
You will have to compromise. It may help if you stagger your sleep schedule so that you sleep right after work–that is, if you get off at 7, sleep from 8 to 4. That way, you’re asleep when all the normies are working, and can still enjoy dinner and/or happy hour with the homies, although you may want to switch to Shirley Temples, you conscientious jerk.
The silver lining is that if you ever finally get a day off, you’ll impress your friends with your ability to stay up extra late. And your partying hours will correspond very closely to your normal work hours, giving that night out on the town an extra sense of transgression. GG Allin would be proud.
Don’t fear chemicals
Of course I am not advocating substance abuse. If you’re in the market for illicit help, I can’t advise you.
However, caffeine is your friend here. Furthermore, it can be helpful to diversify your methods of administration. Most people go with coffee, and I can’t blame them; it’s a classic. Now, most sane humans cringe when I tell them this, but caffeine pills are where it’s at. They are a miracle: cheaper than coffee, predictable in dosage, and don’t have the laxative side effects.
Jet-Alert is my brand of choice because it seems to be the cheapest–about $3.50-4.00 for 90x200mg pills. Whichever brand you choose, it should be either 100mg or 200mg pills, corresponding respectively to one or two strong cups of coffee. I’ve taken as much as 600mg in a very long work day with a tolerance built up, but this is not an advisable starting point. I also suggest cutting off all caffeine at least 6 hours before you plan to sleep.
The other chemical aid worth mentioning, if you’re really nodding off, is smelling salts, as illustrated at the top of the page. Ammonia is disgusting, but harmless in the quantities you’d be using it. It generally comes in cotton-covered glass ampoules that you crack under your nose, or a little plastic bottle that you snap open and quickly close again. You can crack at a distance and fade it towards your sniffer, or if you’re out of your gourd you can hold it up to your nose and then crack. You do build a bit of a tolerance if you use the stuff a lot; on the other hand, sometimes even the memory of the smell is enough to make you shudder awake.
There are also sleep aids. The ones that I’ve tried are melatonin supplements, Benadryl, chamomile, and a heavy slug of whiskey–not all at once, please. They all at least feel like they do the job; chamomile and melatonin are the most gentle, but that may be because their effects are not entirely scientifically proven. Benadryl is pretty brutal, and sometimes gives me a sort of a hangover that messes with me well after I wake up. Whiskey is somewhere in the middle. Try to sleep naturally, if you can. It’s much less trouble.
Have friends
Know which of your friends are up at the same hour. Contact them. Texting back and forth, even at a slowish pace, gives you something besides work to be awake for. Make sure that even your normal friends all know the hours you keep, so that if they’re being kept awake by the thought of our great nation being engulfed by the rising sea, they know to hit you up. Talk to your coworkers. Shoot the breeeeeeze, maaaaaan. It gets very lonely working the night shift; give yourself the best support systems you can.
Come prepared
I bring a large bag of stuff to work. It contains my tablet (with books loaded on), chargers, gym equipment for the morning, various useful legal substances as described above, a notebook, pens, and a wide variety of snacks. I like to pack dental hygiene supplies, too; something about being up all night makes one prone to stank mouth. This is an ideal setup for my job, which has a loose routine with a fair bit of downtime, punctuated by moments of crisis. Your mileage may vary. Other things that I don’t bring, but you might like: knitting supplies, yoga mats, a large flask of expensive liquor, etc.
Move around
The worst thing you can do is stay still. Take bathroom breaks. Thoroughly investigate everything that goes bump in the night. Get up and stretch. Do push-ups or pilates. Practice your dance moves. Take a walk. Get in the fetal position and moan while rocking back and forth. Think of something.
Also, commute by bike if at all feasible. Night biking is a blast, and getting in a little exercise right before you clock in helps you show up with the right attitude.
So, uh, is there anything actually good about working the night shift?
Of course! For one, many employers offer material incentives (“unsociable hours,” “night shift differential,” etc.). If you’re the quiet or introverted type, as I am, the lower level of human interaction can be quite nice. Perhaps unless you’re a cop, the workload on a night shift will probably be milder than the workload of an equivalent day shift position. The sunrise is lovely, and yet so many people sleep right through it. Handing off your job to the daywalkers at shift change, clocking out, and stepping out into the fresh air? It’s nothing short of exhilarating. Everyone in a conducive line of work should try it at least once.
L. R. B. 