Night shifts can prove challenging for the body and mind, but there are steps that you can take to help you cope better.Due to our modern 24-hour society, nearly people in the United States work full-time night shifts, evening shifts, rotational shifts, or other such irregular schedules. What is more, almost 19 percent of adult workers work for 48 hours or more every week, and more than 7 percent work for 60 hours or more each week.Shift work and long working hours have been to a number of health issues, according to the National Sleep Foundation. These include an increased risk of metabolic problems, gastrointestinal difficulties, and certain.Night shift work may also interfere with the body’s ability to repair DNA damage that occurs from normal cellular processes. The suppression of melatonin — which is the hormone responsible for regulating the internal body clock — may play a role.Individuals need to work through the night for numerous reasons.
Finding ways to cope can be the difference between living a healthy existence and being subjected to the many health and safety risks that are elevated during night shifts. Here are Medical News Today‘s coping strategies for working after dark. Ensure that your bedroom is dark, quiet, and cool to promote better sleep.The human body is controlled by an internal body clock, or circadian pacemaker, which is located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus. The SCN generates circadian rhythms, which regulate behavioral and physiological processes in the body, including alertness, sleep, temperature control, and hormone production.Circadian rhythms run in 24-hour cycles and are significantly influenced by the natural light and dark cycles.
Many of the processes in your body that are active in the daytime slow down at night to prepare you for sleep. At night, the circadian pacemaker releases the sleep hormone melatonin from the pineal gland, which causes you to feel less alert and raises your desire to sleep.Night shifts cause you to battle against your natural rhythms by trying to be alert when you are programmed to be sleeping. Similarly, when you go home after a night shift, the cues from your internal body clock and daytime light exposure tell you to be awake and active.Adults need between to function at their best. If you sleep for under that amount, you will incur “sleep debt.” The only way to pay back sleep debt is to catch up on sleep you have missed, and this has to occur as soon as possible after it is incurred.Working at night involves successfully managing your sleep during the day — that is, to keep sleep debt to a minimum — and your fatigue during the night. Daytime sleep can be lighter, shorter, and of poorer quality than sleep at night due to light, noise, and temperature.Try these steps to keep your sleep in check and make your environment more favorable for sleep. Do not delay going to bed.
The longer you delay going to bed, the more awake you are likely to become. Try to set aside a block of 7 to 9 hours to dedicate to sleep after a night shift. Have something to eat and drink before you go to bed. Pangs of hunger or thirst may wake you up. Avoid alcohol before you try to sleep. Alcohol may help you to fall asleep, but it diminishes sleep quality and disturbs the deep stages of sleep, which will leave you feeling unrefreshed the next day. Avoid smoking before bed.
Assigning an employee late hours is not grounds for additional pay. While California’s state law does not entitle employees to more compensation for working the night shift, California’s nonexempt workers do earn double-time pay for working over 12 hours in one shift. Additionally, if an employee works consecutively 7 days, on the 7th day. Night shift has its ups and downs but, humor is the best way to cope!
Nicotine is a stimulant and can therefore cause you to experience difficulties in getting to sleep. Stay away from activities that make you feel more alert until the hours before your next shift. Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, and at a comfortable temperature. Use earplugs to block out daytime noise and blackout curtains to prevent daylight entering the room. Electric fans can be useful to keep air circulating and provide neutral background noise.
Notify friends and family of your working hours so that they do not disturb you.If this is your last shift in a block of night shifts, remember that the more days in a row that you have been working through the night, the more sleep debt you will likely have accrued. Repaying some of the sleep debt that you accumulate as quickly as possible will help you to recover sooner.
Take healthful foods and snacks to work to both keep you alert and prevent obesity. Try to stick to a similar eating pattern to the one that you would follow during the daytime.
Eat frequent light meals or healthful snacks to avoid the drowsiness that is associated with heavy meals. Choose foods that are easy for your body to digest, including bread, rice, pasta, salad, milk products, fruits, and vegetables. Avoid foods that are difficult to digest, such as fried, spicy, and processed meals.
Steer clear of sugary foods. Although they provide a short-term energy boost, this is quickly followed by an energy dip. Snack on fruits and vegetables. Sugars from these are converted slowly into energy, and they are an important source of, minerals, and fiber.
Keep hydrated while you are working to promote physical and mental performance, but do not overload the bladder with fluid before bed.Access to the grocery store and adequate facilities to prepare food can be hard for night workers. Be prepared and take food to work to ensure that you eat properly and stay alert. Take a 45-minute nap during your break to help you feel refreshed and to restore brainpower.A nap taken midway through the day has been to boost and restore brainpower. Even naps of in length have proven beneficial for shift workers to counteract fatigue.Ideally, your night shift naps should not exceed 45 minutes.
Sleep is comprised of different stages, which complete in cycles of between 90 and 100 minutes. One sleep cycle runs from light sleep to deep sleep.Be careful about how long you nap for in order to ensure that you do not wake up during deep sleep. Deep sleep waking is associated with greater sleep inertia, meaning that you will take longer to feel alert and will not feel refreshed. Small regular doses of caffeine can enhance wakefulness and help you to perform better.Most people take a huge dose of coffee at the start of their shift in order to jump-start their day.
Submitted on 8/20/2018 Review title of Chez LizardoGreat for 1 play, but most choices not very meaningfulLoved first playthru. Great production, excellent acting, choices seem to matter. That is, until you realize 7 different endings means essentially 7 storylines, and most of your decisions are minor set dressing. Once you hit a few key decision points, your final outcome is pretty much locked in. Overall good game play rates 5 but unable to overcome railroady feeling of limited choices in any one main storyline. Limited replay value because unimportant minor choices become tedious and repetitious. That alone might rate a 1 or 2, but great production values make it so entertaining on first pass I give it a 3 overall.
Submitted on 8/22/2018 Review title of GestaultFlawed as a game, entertaining (once) as a movieVery good as a movie you can influence the path of, but seriously flawed (given its length) without the ability to skip scenes you've already seen in subsequent playthroughs. The game is built around experiencing seven different endings, but so many sequences amount to filler by your second or third time through that it just ends up being a pointless time-waster. Even something as simple as watching the credits all the way to the end is required for a session to even register for your stats.I enjoyed it so much the first time through, but the longer I was.forced. to re-watch the redundant scenes, the less the quality of the script could hold up to reasonable scrutiny. Also, the love story is so forced, it's almost pitiful.
Submitted on 3/20/2019 Review title of FleaverInstability Ruins Enjoyable ExperienceGreat, short game with memorable choices and outcomes. Some wonky storytelling (where did that kiss come from??) drops it to 4 stars.
However, frequent freezing causes you to replay entire scenes, costing you 15 minutes or more. In my quest to find all 7 endings, I never made it through the story without a crash. Therefore, I cannot recommend anyone to purchase Late Shift in its current state.Played on Xbox One X.