Changing Sleeping Pattern

NoFace

I work half night shifts and half day shifts, and I don't have a shift pattern at all. My shifts are 12 hours, 7-7.
Switching from day shifts to night shifts is relatively easy but I haven't found an effective method of switching from night shifts to day shifts.
Do any of you have any suggestions?

For switching from days to nights, I get home from work at 8.30pm and stay awake as late as I can either gaming or watching TV or doing something with friends. Then I'll sleep as late as I can the following day, though in reality I tend to wake up around midday and start to get tired quite early in my shift and I struggle to make it through, but it leaves me in a position where the following day I'll sleep from 9am - 5pm and feel normal for the rest of the block of shifts.

I can't seem to find something that works when switching from nights to days. I get home from work in the morning at 8.30am, and I'm always a lot more exhausted after a night shift than I am after a day shift. A lot of the time I'll be starting a day shift at 7am the day after, which means getting up at 5.30am at the latest.
I've tried to do the reverse of the opposite pattern, but I don't friends to hang out with in the mornings, and if I started my following day at midnight I would be so tired during my day shift (when things are really busy) that I'd end up performing badly in work.
I've been doing shift work for a year now, so I should've found a method that works by now!

I want to learn how to switch quickly also so that my time off work isn't spent sleeping during the day and then not getting anything done.

con___manx1

The best way to get back to normal for your time off after nights is only sleep 4 or 5 hours at the max after your last shift. You will be tired and go to bed at a normal time that night then and be set for the rest of your time off.

NoFace

con___manx1 wrote: »

The best way to get back to normal for your time off after nights is only sleep 4 or 5 hours at the max after your last shift. You will be tired and go to bed at a normal time that night then and be set for the rest of your time off.

This is what I usually try to do, but a lot of the time I'm so tired when I finish nights that I don't even hear my alarms until 4pm! Or if I do succeed in waking up and go to bed at a normal time, that I'll be more tired and struggle to get out of bed the following day.
It seems odd that it can be so easy to switch from day to night and not at all for night to day!

LostHiigaran

I have the same shifts (almost). Two days then two nights with 24 hours in between the day and night shifts.

After work on the second day, I'll go to bed at around 5am and try and sleep in, waking up around 4pm. I get very tired around 4am but wake up once it gets light and getting home. Sleep until 2 hours before work for the second night shift.

Getting the pattern back to normal, I feel I'm carrying over some tiredness, so even if I wake up at 4pm, I can generally fall asleep around 2am and wake up for 9am.

Some people handle it better than others, some people just cant do it. I know my colleagues nap during the night which helps for them.

Taking Zinc and Magnesium before bed can help give you a better quality sleep.

Fathom

Sleep patterns generally routinized. Practice evokes automaticity. Allows waking up before alarm sounds. Drifting off about same time every night. Disrupt pattern or randomize sleep with shifting work hours, etc., source of sleep problems.