How to sleep better tip 7: Cope with shift work sleep disorder
A disrupted sleep schedule caused by working nights or irregular shifts can lead to sleepiness in the work place, affect your mood, energy, and concentration, and increase your risk of accidents, injuries, and work-related mistakes. Shift workers tend to suffer from two problems: sleeping at home during the day and staying awake at work during the night. To avoid or limit these problems:
- Limit the number of night or irregular shifts you work in a row to prevent sleep deprivation from mounting up. If that’s not possible, avoid rotating shifts frequently so you can maintain the same sleep schedule.
- Avoid a long commute that reduces sleep time. Also, the more time you spend traveling home in daylight, the more awake you’ll become and the harder you’ll find it to get to sleep.
- Drink caffeinated drinks early in your shift, but avoid them close to bedtime.
- Take frequent breaks and use them to move around as much as possible—take a walk, stretch, or even exercise if possible.
- Adjust your sleep-wake schedule and your body’s natural production of melatonin. Expose yourself to bright light when you wake up at night, use bright lamps or daylight-simulation bulbs in your workplace, and then wear dark glasses on your journey home to block out sunlight and encourage sleepiness.
- Eliminate noise and light from your bedroom during the day. Use blackout curtains or a sleep mask, turn off the phone, and use ear plugs or a soothing sound machine to block out daytime noise.
- Make sleep a priority at the weekends or on your nonworking days so you can pay off your sleep debt.
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