Night Shift Work

Ive been working night shift for 3 years and the benefits(more money) are starting to pale in comparison to the disadvantages(less social life, health issues and the disapproving looks i get at the shop when i buy alcohol at 8am).

Anybody else work nights or has worked nights got any comments?


Quick edit just found this:

Health effects of shift work and night work
Human beings tend towards daytime wakefulness and sleep at night. The body operates on a 24 hour clock, on cycles known as circadian rhythms. Disruption of these rhythms is considered to be the major cause of the harmful effects of shift work, even if absolute proof is lacking so far. Complete adjustment to changing cycles is rare and the ability to do so declines with increasing age. The major health effects are:

Fatigue and sleep deficits. Workers who have to sleep by day often experience difficulties because their body clock does not adjust completely and they are more prone to disturbance. Both the quality and duration of sleep are affected. Sleep deficit and fatigue can build up and affect work, e.g. through the increased possibility of accidents.
Gastrointestinal disorders. Irregular food intake associated with night and shift work can lead to stomach complaints. Some studies have found that permanent shift workers are more than twice as likely to suffer from peptic ulcers as day workers. Another study showed that workers on permanent shifts develop peptic ulcers after about five years on average.
Cardiovascular disorders. A significant relationship between shift work and heart disease has been reported in a high proportion of studies, especially the more modern ones.
Neurological disorders. There is accumulating evidence for an increased incidence of neurological symptoms among shift workers, developing into mental illness. One study reported the average onset period for mental illness in shift workers as less than four years.
Menstrual disorders. Some studies report a link between shift work and disruption of the menstrual cycle.
Effects also arise from the impairment of conventional social and family life, resulting in increased substance abuse and the breakdown of marital and other relationships. Difficulties are particularly acute for women with child-care responsibilities.





[Edited on Mar 19, 2006 by Spuggy]

[Edited on Mar 19, 2006 by Spuggy]

i work night shifts its sucks hardcore, i hate it

but then again i don't have to deal with therest of the staff

I personally have never worked night shifts but my gf's father worked nights for about 20 years and even though he doesn't work now, he is still prone to sleep most of the day, which I find strange because he sleeps at night too

working nights did make him very depressed and agitated though. I think it's worse if you have teenage girls to deal with during the day who don't let you sleep

I worked an occassional night, up to even 72 hours straight. I'm usually a night person, meaning I stay up late, but I could never work at night continuously. Let's face it, humans are not nocturnal creatures. Although we can conquer most of our environments and make changes that make our lives better and healthier, we are still a diurnal species. Our body is, for the most part, just not made for night in the long run.

Oh, and here's my 2 cents.

I seem to get more done late at night.. I own a small IT firm and I do most of the remote server maintenance work that we have late at night. I don't mind it because I've never been able to sleep much anyway.

I loved working nights... and find myself not working at the moment on a very weird kind of sleep pattern .. there have been many reports that women that work nights will become more prone to brest cancer... to be honest I just enjoyed working at night.. a bit less stress..Although my mom would get pissed when I was drunk at 9 am and on my way to bed... I didnt mind having brekfast and a drink to go with it.... . I am just really not all that good at working with coustomers... gl to you....

[Edited on Mar 19, 2006 by paranoidbabydoll]

I worked nights the whole summer between my junior and senior year. So I only did it for three months, but I loved it. I think about going back to working some kind of night shift all the time.

My dad has worked the night shift for 25 years at a paper mill. He seems to enjoy it as well.

I can see the downside to it of course, but I think it's cool.

Yep, I'm working 4x 12 hour nights...4:00pm to 4:30am

Didn't really effect my social life, since I didn't have one while I was working days.

Current benefits are: 4-day work week, 3-day weekends, 8 hours of overtime every week, not having to deal with annoying people

Current disadvantages: working alone-so no help available for an industrial accident, crowded bus during the commute in, trying to sleep during 110 degree summer days.

I hated the whole going to work the same day you got off thing.

I worked from 7pm until 7am and I'd wake up around 4pm and be like, "What day is it? Yesterday was the 18th, aww fuck, it's still the 18th."

It was like I had to live everyday twice.

My best friend works over night (he's like top tier tech support for a cable company) and he loves it. It's obviously less busy and he's not a morning person at all...if he's up before 2pm, I'm shocked.

I worked late for a little while and while the pay was nice because of a shift differential, but other than that their were not many positives.
Little things bug me about working late. Even stupid stuff like just missing a tv show I really wanted to watch makes me not want to work late in the evening. Luckily, I have a job that I always have weekends off so that helps if I ever do have a social life but working earlier in the day is better just because if I'm out of work by 7 or 8 at the latest, I can still do stuff at night before stores close or have a night out and still be home by like midnight if need be.

I work 12 hour night shifts, 7pm - 7am. I did so for a long time alone as well. I find it makes sleeping more difficult as well as less refreshing. I sleep about 7 hours between shifts and always feel so exhausted that on my days off all I do is sleep.

I tend to get sick more and just feel less energetic in general. I have a hard time with remembering what the date is as well.

I've been working the night shift for almost 9 years. It works for me, but not for a lot of people. I enjoy the quiet and the laid back pace. My social life doesn't suffer at all. When I wake up in the afternoon, all of my friends are just getting out of work. When they all go to sleep, I just head off to the job.
Of course, it helps me that I dislike sleep in the first place, and try to get by with as little as I need.

Nine years of night!!!

Do you think your health has suffered at all?

Only in that there is a lot of inactivity. I wish there was some heavy lifting or moving around, I'd like to get a bit more exercise out of it. My sleep habits are a bit odd, but that is mostly my choice, not a side effect.

That's a bad thing?

I need to look into finding a night shift job...

Try being a pimp

Been working nights for going on...*does the math* 4yrs. Oooh so that explains the mental issues.
But seriously it pretty much sucks. I also have a 5yr old so I average 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night so come my days off I have no energy to do ANYTHING all I want to do is pass out for a day strait. And I feel like I get sick alot easier also that ulcer thing isn't so far off I think. BUT on the plus side I don't have to deal with anyone else that works there and far less people on my shit so it almost makes up for it. But not quite.

If I ever have kids one day, I kow that the 3rd shift probably won't work for me. Then I'll leave. I'm also very lucky in that the two people who work for me (I'm the supervisor) are very cool people, so there is no stress at all most nights.

i've been working nights for just over 3 years now. i'm just now starting to really get o my breaking pint with it. my sleep pattern is all over the place. about a month ago i had ahorrible bout of insomnia that lasted a week. i wouldn't reccomend working nights to anyone unless that is your only option. as for health issues, i don't get sick very often. i'm just tired all the time and tend towards lethargy. the only good thing is on an off night if you go out you usually don't have a problem staying up or drinking all night.

I used to work nights and will be working nights again in about a week.

The only problem I have is no air conditioning in the summer. As someone said earlier, sleeping when it's 100 out is pretty tough.

I generally get up around 4 or 5 pm and get a cup of coffee and my 'morning' exercise. I get my energy about 8pm and coast the rest of the night. By 8am when I get off, my roomate is just leaving for work, so I have a quiet room to sleep in.

I live in darkness, but come on, I was born for that.

Even before i started working nights i always liked staying up when everyone was asleep. Theres something satisfying in going to the shops at 4am on a sunday morning when there are no cars or people in the streets. Winters suit night workers well as its dark early and stays dark till late morning so its easy to get some sleep. But summers suck. Too light and too damm hot to sleep during the day. As for lethargy, who can be bothered.

I forgot to add that taking 1mg of Melatonin for the first month of night shift work about an hour before you go to bed works really well for me. The brain normally produces melatonin starting about 8pm and peaking at midnight.
My nocturnal scheduele felt more 'normal' after that.

Strange words coming from a vamp.

I love working nights. I work alone at a pretty slack ass job. I have maybe an hour of accounting/paperwork and an hour of menial tasks then 6 hours to basically kick it. I have very few customers to deal with and very little stress. I'm working 6 nights a week, 8 hour shifts (11pm - 7am) and sleep 8am - 2pm so I have my evenings to myself (bit of a loner here).

I found that if I keep a healthy diet I don't feel so exhausted all the time. For the first year or so of this job I was living on Ramen and felt like shit all the time. I think I've found a groove now though and am pretty happy with it.

I don't actually *work* nights, but I typically spend the bulk of my awake time during the night. It's far more natural for me than getting up in the morning. Sunlight would be an issue but I live in the basement and I get virtually no natural light even in the middle of the day. (If you can find a bedroom with no windows, or an underground room to use as your bedroom, I highly recommend it.)

The main reason(s) I don't work nights are that night-time busses are few and far between and that my place of employment closes no later than 9 pm and earlier some days. If I had a car or worked 8 hour shifts, and could find work this good at night, I'd do it in a flash.