How do you recover from night shift?

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I've been doing night shift for over 20 years. My schedule is 12 hour shifts (8pm to 8am) 7 days in a row then 7 days off. Basically I work every other week. The key for me is to not do too much during my work week. My work week consists of work, eat , sleep. I try to not to do anything extra. I focus on those 3 things for 7days straight. Then when I'm off the 7 days I do as I please. One recovery technique I've learned is to let my body do whatever it feels in those first 1 to 2 days. I don't force any activity. If I feel good enough to run errands or do other things (like RC) then I do them until I get tired. If I'm tired I sleep...keep it simple. That first day off is tough but by the 2nd or 3rd day I'm back to whatever routine life has in store. I set up a few goals that I want to attain weekly and give myself the whole week to get those done. When I was younger I'd work extra shifts on my week off for some extra cash. Now that I just turned 50 I have NO desire to work any extra. My off time is MINES and I guard it ferociously. I do feel some of the "slow down" you speak of but at 50 I feel like I shouldn't be doing the same things I was doing when I was 30 or 40 anyway. As I've aged my "IDontGiveADamn" meter is steadily increasing and I've become a happier man because of it. I've also come down with a severe case of the "F@#k Its" compounded with an new infection known as "Who Gives A S%$T-itis".
That all sound very familiar to me. I'm the same, when I'm on NS its work, eat, sleep repeat. work, eat, sleep repeat.
"I set up a few goals that I want..." Me too. I make a To Do List for the week off otherwise I get to the end of my time off and haven't done f@ck all.
My shift is 330pm to 2 am Monday rhru Thursdays... 10 hr shift with 30 lunch. Im lucky to be asleep by 6 am. Get up noonish to get few things done. Do have to work some Fridays for overtime if required. My kids are grown now so don't have all the school activities to deal with now so it aint so bad. What sucks for me is if we do get togethers on a weekend if hard for me to wake up, travel and be part of conversions . Been on this shift for 8 yrs now.
Can't really give any advice , just roll with it.
Yep I do the school runs when I'm on my week off to give my wife a break as she works too, but not for the first two days as I refuse to drive when I'm a zombie.
 
Last edited:
My routine when on nights is definitely going to bed as soon as I get home.....I don't sleep as long as I would during a "normal" sleep time, but after im up I force myself to workout.......its not easy but I firmly believe its one of the biggest helps. Then eat and relax. I also make it a point to get a small nap in a few hours before heading back in. I honestly feel like the workout and the nap our my 2 biggest helps.

Black out shades for your room and cell phone on silent can't hurt either however I haven't done it
 
My routine when on nights is definitely going to bed as soon as I get home.....I don't sleep as long as I would during a "normal" sleep time, but after im up I force myself to workout.......its not easy but I firmly believe its one of the biggest helps. Then eat and relax. I also make it a point to get a small nap in a few hours before heading back in. I honestly feel like the workout and the nap our my 2 biggest helps.

Black out shades for your room and cell phone on silent can't hurt either however I haven't done it
I actually sleep really well when on the NS week. More than I would when on day shift. Its coming off NS I have the issue. I'd like to reduce the recovery time. I do agree though, physical activity helps you sleep.
I always have my phone on silent. One less thing to wake me up.
 
My routine when on nights is definitely going to bed as soon as I get home.....I don't sleep as long as I would during a "normal" sleep time, but after im up I force myself to workout.......its not easy but I firmly believe its one of the biggest helps. Then eat and relax. I also make it a point to get a small nap in a few hours before heading back in. I honestly feel like the workout and the nap our my 2 biggest helps.

Black out shades for your room and cell phone on silent can't hurt either however I haven't done it
I've got jet black shades in every window!! LOL My cell phone is never on silent but between certain hours I NEVER answer. If your call isn't important enough for you to leave a message it ain't important enough for me to interrupt my sleeping during the day.
 
My "night shift" consists of working 2:30pm to 11pm. So I haven't really needed to adjust much.
Evening shift mate.😜

I don't have any advise @Warby. I've worked nights half of my career. In my early days I would work 8 at night and put in another 6-8 doing remodeling work on the side after my shift was over in the morning. I can't imagine doing that now. I'm currently on 3 12hr shifts b2b. I try to flip the clock on my 4 days off but it really doesn't work out well. I did 7 on 7 off years ago and was able to recover pretty rapidly but in my current position, at 57 yrs old, I can relate to all the other symptoms you've described. If nothing else I hope you can find solace in the fact I share the same issues.
When I'm on shift, it's sleep/work/sleep and nothing else. My days off I'm sleeping until 11 am generally, so little gets done. Got weeks of backlogged jobs around the house and it keeps piling up and it's kinda frustrating because all of it was pretty easy to make time for when I was on a normal DS schedule.
At this point in my life I don't fight what my body is telling me. Some days I take a 2-hr nap, some days I'm fine for the day. If I lay down at 2000 and wake up at Midnight I don't try to force myself back to sleep. I'll just stay up then catch up some other time in the morning/ day.
 
Last edited:
Just saw this 😂

1b9r68dhp1571.jpg
 
Evening shift mate.😜

I don't have any advise @Warby. I've worked nights half of my career. In my early days I would work 8 at night and put in another 6-8 doing remodeling work on the side after my shift was over in the morning. I can't imagine doing that now. I'm currently on 3 12hr shifts b2b. I try to flip the clock on my 4 days off but it really doesn't work out well. I did 7 on 7 off years ago and was able to recover pretty rapidly but in my current position, at 57 yrs old, I can relate to all the other symptoms you've described. If nothing else I hope you can find solace in the fact I share the same issues.
When I'm on shift, it's sleep/work/sleep and nothing else. My days off I'm sleeping until 11 am generally, so little gets done. Got weeks of backlogged jobs around the house and it keeps piling up and it's kinda frustrating because all of it was pretty easy to make time for when I was on a normal DS schedule.
At this point in my life I don't fight what my body is telling me. Some days I take a 2-hr nap, some days I'm fine for the day. If I lay down at 2000 and wake up at Midnight I don't try to force myself back to sleep. I'll just stay up then catch up some other time in the morning/ day.
They call it night shift and give us an extra $1 per hour but who I am to argue with that. 🤷‍♂️
 
They call it night shift and give us an extra $1 per hour but who I am to argue with that. 🤷‍♂️
We call it "evenings" and get shift differentials as well. 👍 Not a great shift because your in limbo until you unwind by 1 or 2 am. I always slept til noon on that shift too. It's a completely different beast however when ur up til 7 or 8 am routinely. 🤕 I never get more than 3-4 hrs uninterrupted rest.
 
But if I didn't have kids I'd probably go back to overnight's less drama Then I wouldn't have to deal with my ground guy deciding to do whatever he wants And crews that want to sit around for 45 minutes on a 15 and a hour and a 1/2 on lunch
 
NS isn't too bad, spent 15 years doing it. Definitely cramps the social life though. The swing shifts are the absolute worst. Quite frankly I can't see a legitimate reason an employer insists on doing it. Sure, it's harder to find people who want to work nights, but it's downright inhuman to force the entire group to go through this cycle I feel. Hey, what's going on with Johnny? His numbers were great last week, this week they're in the toilet🤔
I mean hey, here's a concept. Take a poll, who's willing to work nights for a premium? Take those people along with the junior people and fill the night shift needs.
Give the senior employees the days and the night crew something to work for long term(days) when they become the senior employees.. not that hard to figure out?
 
I’ve done shift work for almost 20yrs now - and it is punishing on the old body.. especially as I’m swiftly approaching 50!
My pattern is 2 x day shifts (07.00x17.00) followed by 2 x late shifts (16.00x02.00) followed by 2 night shifts (21.00x07.00) then 4 days before off before starting over again.
The key when coming off nights is to force yourself back into a ‘normal’ pattern as others have said.
I can’t make myself stay awake after my last night and push through as some do… I go to bed for 5 hours then get up and try to keep myself busy doing something or other… Not sitting down watching TV because I’d just nod off!
I then turn in by about 21.30 - 22.00 and sleep for as long as possible (hopefully 10 or 11 hours). After this I’m generally ‘reset’ but it’s not always easy to get that uninterrupted night that is so important.
As the years have gone on I’ve found it takes more time to get over that wiped out feeling - sometimes it’s day 3 or even day 4 before I feel human again!
The lack of regularity sure does take its toll in terms of eating and sleeping patterns!
 
I've had to work night shift at two different places. Hated it and switched to day shift as soon as I could. But going to night shift first was the only way to get the job, so it was unavoidable.

My solution was to sleep twice a day. My shift was 7pm to 7am. I always tried to get some sleep at 12 am and 12 pm. While working, I could obviously only take a quick nap at 12 am. By sleeping twice a day, I always had some sleep in the last 12 hours and I could stay fairly flexible in my day to day activities.

I always kept it the same, even when I had several days off, so I wouldn't have to re-adjust.
 
I've been doing night shift now for 10 years. 7 shift stints so I get fully adjusted to NS by the end of the swing. In fact I actually sleep really well when on the NS week.

But as time goes by I've notice my recovery time is increasing. I call it the night shift hangover which can last up to 4-5 days these days. Sometimes I recovery in 2 days if I'm lucky but rarely. I'm not a nice human during this recovery period. I'm useless, tired(obviously), short tempered, head in the clouds, antisocial and worst of all very unmotivated. I hate myself during this time. Borderline depressed actually. This recovery time is a write-off, nothing gets done.

I'm not sure if the increased recovery time is due to my age(42) and/or my physical fitness. Either way, one is increasing and other is decreasing 😆 .

Anyways, the reason for creating this thread is hopefully some of you fellow members whom have experience with NS can share some advice/tips for recovering from it. Not just for me but for others going through the same.

please feel free to have a say. thanks
If your biorhythem is made rather for day then you will always suffer. I made late shifts and even that was sometimes made me next day lazzy or dizzy.
 
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 90 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.
Back
Top