Tuesday, May 4, 2010
sleep? who needs sle....zzzzzzzzz
I remember a week about 4 or 5 yrs ago (i think) when I got about 10-12 hrs of sleep in a 10 day period. Sure, I almost wrecked twice because I dozed off for a sec while I was driving, but in the end I maybe took a day where I got 6-8 hrs of sleep and I was fine. Rip roaring and ready to go. Most of my friends asked me if I was on speed or something quite frequently because I was always go go go and didn't sleep a whole lot, but I wasn't on anything. Sleep, who needs sleep, it's overrated and you sleep when you're dead! HA! Then when I started working at Stop N Go and I got the 5a-9a shift most of the time, it really started hitting me more. I think it may have been progressive over time, where I would get more and more tired, but this is when I really started to feel it. I would come home and nap for a bit and then continue my day, worked out well since I was home by 20 after 9 in the morning! Well after a couple weeks I got used to the shift and I could go all day from getting up at 3am til I went to bed around 11pm. Then they switched me to afternoon/evening shifts for a week, and then back to the 5a-9a shift. Wow! Although, I'm not sure that's what's kicking my behind. It was during the week when I was on afternoons in which I started doing all of my sleeping. That Friday I got 13hrs, followed by 9hrs on both Sat and Sun and then 11 hrs the following Wed night. This week I went back to the 5a-9a shift, Sun night I went to bed at like 12p and got up at 3, but I took a 3 hrs nap in the afternoon, and I thought I would be fine for the week then, I was before. Well today I tried very hard not to nap in the afternoon, but after a few hours of cleaning down in the empty apt and finding a dead bird, I came upstairs to lay in the sun and try and make myself not so pale! LOL I fell asleep within 5 min of laying down, on the wood deck. Slept for about 40 min and woke up long enough to pick up the blanket I was laying on and the pillow I was using and moved to the couch to continue to sleep for a total of 5 hrs and a complete loss of the evening. Sleeping this much is not like me, and I'm always ready for a nap anymore, and I have been sleeping Hard and not hearing anything. I hope nothing is wrong with me, because anyone who knows me knows, I sure as heck ain't going to the doctor! I think that it has to do with my mood as of lately, but that's one of the things that I'm probably not going to talk about on here. So I guess I'll take the sleep as making up for all the sleep I didn't think I needed.
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I know EXACTLY what you are going through... I worked overnights/early am for 5 years... and while people say you get used to it you never do. A few tricks I learned: 1. limit caffeine, I would allow myself ONE can of diet soda towards the beginning of my shift. Too much and it's hard to get to sleep when you need to get to sleep, none and you can't stay up the whole shift. 2. Set an alarm for your naps. It's hard to do but when you sleep more than an hour you can sleep all day. I would set my alarm for one hour, lay down an allow myself to sleep, then force myself to get up. and 3. Make evening plans. Even if your plans are just to get up and watch Greys Anatomy if you have something you want to get up for and build yourself up for it... you can usually make it work. Like I said that's what worked for me. Good luck!!!
ReplyDeleteI gave up pop and caffeine 4 yrs ago, so I do not get any of that, and I'm starting my new job on Monday, well technically this Thurs, but Monday will be the first day of only my new job, and it's from 8a-5p so I will have a solid schedule, even when the campgrounds opens and I'll have that too. I will probably end up working 8a-5p and then 5:30p-8,9 or 10p during the week (except the 1st and 3rd Mondays when I have BPA mtgs) and then probably just one simple shift at the campgrounds on the weekends, because my new job is only Mon-Fri!! Thank you for the advice though!! Just 2 more days of getting up at 3am and I'm DONE!
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