Live at night, Sleep during Day

Fukuyama

Anyone ever done this?

I have a load of college work and other stuff I'm supposed to be doing. But I find I can only concentrate on anything at night.

So I'm considering flipping my life around to sleep during the day, and go to work in the evenings and study through the night.

HondaSami

I work shift work so have no choice.

Latchy

It's been around a long time now ....it's called shift work .

1ZRed

Everyone's going to start calling you nocturnal dean and start thinking you're some alco once you start your weekend sessions at 11 in the morning

mconigol

Now this is the story all about how,
My life got flipped, turned upside down....

The Road Runner

Don't go full retard, aka sleeping at 1pm waking at 9pm for the news. It's a lonely beautiful road but the civvies don't get it

danslevent

Prepare for no social life!

Fukuyama

I've also been looking into this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep

I've so much **** to do. College and two jobs.

boboldpilot

Try working overnight shifts. It'll soon cure you of the idea. Around three in the morning you go slightly insane. It's like being drunk. After a month of it you'll be exhausted. Then there's the daytime sleeping, you'll be constantly interrupted by people who don't get the idea that this is your rest time. Then there's those inconsiderate people who let their children play outside on on sunny afternoons while they cut the grass with their petrol mowers. So you never get enough sleep.

Did seven years of it. Probably knocked 14 years off my life.

johnnykilo

Yep, did it for months when I was doing my Masters last year and doing my dissertation over the Summer. Found it was a lot easier to work from about 11pm to 8 in the morning, no distractions. Probably best not to do it long term but I think it helped me get a lot more work done than I would have done working "normal hours". You do tend to go a bit mental though

Not sure what you're studying but I found this was particularly relevant to me:

http://www.whiteboardmag.com/why-programmers-work-at-night-being-tired-makes-us-better-coders/

dodderangler

Shift work doesn't help
I do week of day shift and week or night shift so all over the place really which can be hard when you've a child to get up with in the mornings

Cypher_sounds

What would the neighbours think :eek::eek::eek:

SEPT 23 1989

very bad for your health OP

ElleEm

boboldpilot wrote: »

Try working overnight shifts. It'll soon cure you of the idea. Around three in the morning you go slightly insane. It's like being drunk. After a month of it you'll be exhausted. Then there's the daytime sleeping, you'll be constantly interrupted by people who don't get the idea that this is your rest time. Then there's those inconsiderate people who let their children play outside on on sunny afternoons while they cut the grass with their petrol mowers. So you never get enough sleep.

Did seven years of it. Probably knocked 14 years off my life.

You have just brought back the worst memories. I did shift work for five years, but had to give it up due to health issues. I was constantly sick, my immune system was sh!t, I am convinced the lack of sleep contributed to it. Many a day, I would sit at home crying cos I was nauseous with tiredness, and the kids next door would be playing in the garden.

OP, I'm all for staying up late to get college work completed, but don't stay up ALL night. Maybe 3am depending on how late you sleep in the day. Once you mess up your sleep pattern, you're f*cked for ages!

AnonoBoy

Start taking amphetamines.

What was the problem again?

jimthemental

My housemate does this, but it's probably so we won't catch him smoking weed and chuck him out.

I work night shift every second week and it makes bits of me. Off to work in a few minutes.

Oranage2

worked night shifts for a year, horrible time, made me really anxious around people during the day, made me quite anti social, put on a lot of weight. quit 5 months ago and have been on holiday since, I still don't think I've fully recovered from it. I doubt I'll ever do it again.


On a side note, I've never felt more peaceful then being awake at 4am and watching a movie or playing some online poker. wouldn't recommend doing it on a regular basis though.

Some people don't mind it at all. I hate mornings myself but don't think I would flip around completely. Something like working from 1pm to 9pm and heading to bed around 3am and sleeping until around 12pm I think would be ideal for me.

My mother works 7 nights on 7 nights off (12 hour shifts, 8pm to 8am) and wouldn't swap for anything, I wouldn't be against that myself with the week off every second week. My uncle also refuses to work normal days and instead work a 5pm to 2am shift, waits up then until morning usually before going to bed.

spankysue

I worked shift work for 2 years, did a week of nights every 3 weeks and they fcuked me up completely. The whole week used to feel like one long day, I honestly wouldn't recommend it if you like feeling normal.

WumBuster

In college myself and was up the whole night the last 2 nites working on an assignment to be handed in today. Could never do it during the day. The only drawback is to re-ajust Ive had to stay up all day today and go into college with no sleep, by the time i go to bed later ill be going on 30 hours with no sleep!

I've done it quite a bit over the last few weeks. I'm a freelance translator and also have a teaching job from 4pm to 10pm. I'd stay up translating until 4 or 5am, sleep for most of the day, get up at 2pm, eat lunch and go to work. Miserable life, to be honest. You barely get any daylight and just feel sh*tty. I also now have a really bad case of the flu with a banging headache, so I wouldn't say it was great for my immune system either. And yeah, no social life.

stoneill

Shift work - for nearly 20 years. Night shift is a feckin killer, and get worse as I get older.

Don't do it if you don't have to!

spankysue

spankysue wrote: »

I worked shift work for 2 years, did a week of nights every 3 weeks and they fcuked me up completely. The whole week used to feel like one long day, I honestly wouldn't recommend it if you like feeling normal.

The big problem there though is the switching back and over. If you were on nights all the time you would get used to it.

I'd take a night shift any day over having to get up for work at 5 or 6am, I don't think I could actually get up that early on a regular basis.

kowloon

stoneill wrote: »

Shift work - for nearly 20 years. Night shift is a feckin killer, and get worse as I get older.

Don't do it if you don't have to!

Agreed, once you're not in the best of health it starts to mess with you.

BattleCorp

By law, workers are supposed to have a medical exam before they start work as night shift workers.

These medical exams are supposed to be carried out occasionally to monitor if the night shift is having an adverse effect on your health.

There's a reason for this. I've done it for years and night shift work fcuks you up

ArtyC

i work in a nightclub......been three years and i havent been right. im finally in a position io can say goodbye to it. my boyfriend an friends are delighted, its no way to live

Miss Lockhart

It's my ideal - get up around 2pm bed around 5am. Unfortunately there's no way to do it and still do my job. I'm so much more productive between about 9pm and 3am.

Grayson

danslevent wrote: »

Prepare for no social life!

If only pubs and cinemas were open in the evening.

shedweller

Jaziel Refined Joint wrote: »

The big problem there though is the switching back and over. If you were on nights all the time you would get used to it.

Theres the thing. I'm on 4 nights shift. 22:00 to 07:00 monday to thursday night. Been that way for nearly 8 years and i would love a week on week off. Well, i think i would. I did the continental shift before which was two 12hr days followed by two 12hr nights, followed by four days off. I thought it was ok. A lot of weekends sucked but other than that it was fine. Short term nights are quickly recovered from. Long term nights just wear you down and i cannot imagine how hard it would be to study something on nights.

itac

I edit quite a lot, and tend to find that my most productive times are anywhere from 8/9pm to about 3/4am. Unfortunately, I'm usually up for work anywhere from 6.30/7am onwards...I've always been a bad sleeper though, and most of my jobs when I was younger were pub/restaurant work where I was up til the wee small hours anyway!
It does throw daytime living out of sync though, and I totally agree with the poster who said at some point, the tiredness feels like drunkeness-it might work ideally for you for a little while, but at some point the late night tiredness nausea and burning eyes will get to you, or, as has happened me, the shapes in your room that are usually stationary will start moving around you, and you in your exhausted state, may not really enjoy that....!

Also, as another warning, no matter how tired I was, I rarely slept during the day unless I was feeling physically sick from lack of sleep...so, to concur with many others, don't do it unless you have to!!

tunedout

danslevent wrote: »

Prepare for no social life!

Or, one hell of a social life.

shedweller

shedweller wrote: »

Theres the thing. I'm on 4 nights shift. 22:00 to 07:00 monday to thursday night. Been that way for nearly 8 years and i would love a week on week off. Well, i think i would. I did the continental shift before which was two 12hr days followed by two 12hr nights, followed by four days off. I thought it was ok. A lot of weekends sucked but other than that it was fine. Short term nights are quickly recovered from. Long term nights just wear you down and i cannot imagine how hard it would be to study something on nights.

That 22:00 to 7:00 shift for 4 days looks like something I'd like to be honest. The most thing that would put me off an evening shift or night shift starting earlier in the evening is missing midweek sport but with your shift you can watch it before work, you have three days off then and your on a perfect body clock for late nights out at weekends along with the fact your week doesn't start until monday night.

A lot of people are saying working nights will mess with your head. Once you have a situation where you can sleep properly during the day (i.e. no interuptions) I dont see why its all that different, you might see a bit less sunlight but plenty of people on days see very little of it especially during the winter. Its dark leaving for work, inside all day and dark going home etc.

As I said above, I think having to get up very early every morning for work would be much harder on me psychologically than working evening's/nights.

danslevent wrote: »

Prepare for no social life!

It depends, you wont get much in the way of midweek nights out but you will be on a perfect body clock for weekend nights out/all night sessions and you can have better sunday nights out as work isn't until Monday night.

Sofiztikated

BattleCorp wrote: »

By law, workers are supposed to have a medical exam before they start work as night shift workers.

These medical exams are supposed to be carried out occasionally to monitor if the night shift is having an adverse effect on your health.

There's a reason for this. I've done it for years and night shift work fcuks you up

Have you a link/source for this?

I don't mind doing them. Have been doing them on and off for a while. And just about to start a position as a night manager.

Don't plan on doing them forever, I'm planning a year, and that's it.

The hardest part of the night is between 4.30 and 5.30. You physically feel your body slowing down. You start to hear things. You see things in your peripheral vision. You hear your heart. You taste iron in your mouth.

Come 7.30, and I'm awake again. Home, sleep for 3 - 4 hours, up, do day time stuff, sleep for an hour or 2 before work.

shedweller

I should also point out that my sleep cycle is very delicate. Come tuesday morning you would expect me to sleep the sleep of the gods. But no, i wake between 12:00 and 13:00. Thats 4.5hrs. Less if i drink anything after midnight as i wake for a slash and cannot go back to sleep, despite almost crying from tiredness. As the week progresses i sleep longer day on day until friday when i need to get up at 13:00 but struggle out of the bed. If i sleep till 15:00 then the weekend is a write off!
Even if i do everything perfectly i still get woken up by one of the kids in the middle of the night and thats it, i'm awake for the night! The next day can be tough!

Ah the joys.

shedweller

shedweller wrote: »

I should also point out that my sleep cycle is very delicate. Come tuesday morning you would expect me to sleep the sleep of the gods. But no, i wake between 12:00 and 13:00. Thats 4.5hrs. Less if i drink anything after midnight as i wake for a slash and cannot go back to sleep, despite almost crying from tiredness. As the week progresses i sleep longer day on day until friday when i need to get up at 13:00 but struggle out of the bed. If i sleep till 15:00 then the weekend is a write off!
Even if i do everything perfectly i still get woken up by one of the kids in the middle of the night and thats it, i'm awake for the night! The next day can be tough!

Ah the joys.

I suppose again, like someone changing shifts from nights to days regularly its the fact you have to regularly switch to a more day time regime at weekends that's really killing you. I understand this is due to responsibilities, kids etc and is not totally by choice so you cannot just keep more or less the same sleep cycle throughout the week.

stoneill

Jaziel Refined Joint wrote: »

A lot of people are saying working nights will mess with your head. Once you have a situation where you can sleep properly during the day (i.e. no interuptions) I dont see why its all that different, you might see a bit less sunlight but plenty of people on days see very little of it especially during the winter. Its dark leaving for work, inside all day and dark going home etc.

As I said above, I think having to get up very early every morning for work would be much harder on me psychologically than working evening's/nights.

A lot of people who have never done shift work think this - they base this on their limited experience of staying out late once or twice.
It is more than sleep patterns that gets messed up. It messes with your whole body, it messes with when you are hungry, what type of hunger, when your need to use bathrooms, try having to get up at 4am on your rest days to take a crap, there is a buzzing sensation behind your eyes, you can't sleep well at night, you find it hard to stay awake during the day. I could go on and on, but basically NO - if you don't need to then don't do it.

BattleCorp

Sofiztikated wrote: »

Have you a link/source for this?

Sorry, I don't have a link to it. It's in our Safety Statement and I work for a large company so I reckon it's legit or it wouldn't be in there.

Micky Dolenz

We are not designed to be nocturnal. It is something your body will never get used to, no matter how long you do it for. Some people cope better then others though.

Dwork

I would consider doing this, but only at gunpoint and then I'd doze off around 1am so they'd shoot me as a failure. I like sleeping in my bed, at night. Night working is for Badgers, foxes and people whose Bosses are greedy cnuts.

Culleeo

Sofiztikated wrote: »

Have you a link/source for this?

Regulation 157: Health assessment and transfer to day work
157. (1) An employer,
(a) before employing a person as a night worker, and
(b) at regular intervals during the period that that person is employed as
a night worker,
shall make available to that person, free of charge, an assessment by a
registered medical practitioner, or a person under the practitioner’s
supervision, in relation to any adverse effects of that night work on the
night worker’s health.
Before an employee starts night work and at regular intervals whilst working as a
night worker, the employer must offer the employee an assessment by a registered
medical practitioner, or a person under the medical practitioner’s supervision, to
determine any adverse effects of night working on the employee’s health.

It's part of the General Applications 2007, Chapter 3 of Part 6, Shiftwork and Nightwork.

Grayson

Grayson wrote: »

If only pubs and cinemas were open in the evening.

What use is that when you're probably starting your night shift between 8pm and 11pm? You can't drink before work. You'd have to leave the cinema before the film was over.

This is what's most annoying about shift work. People just don't get that your entire day is backwards. When you're on a night shift, you might get up at between 4pm and 6pm (depending on when you got home from work and how much sleep you need). That's the equivalent of early morning for most people. You have 'breakfast', have a shower, get ready and go to work. Fancy meeting a friend for lunch? Good luck doing that at at your 'lunchtime' - 3am or 4am. Fancy going out for a pint after work? Not that easy to do at 7am or 8am, which is your 'evening'. You have no social life because you're either at work or in bed when most people are meeting up and doing things. People never really seem to get this, for some reason.

That's why working nights ruins your life. Late afternoon/evening shifts are bad enough (I usually finish the day job at 10pm) but at least you can do something after work, even if it's a quick pint or a late-night film and you're up by lunchtime. Night shifts have no social benefits at all really, unless you hate people.

Dwork

I'd rather get the shift at night than get the nightshift.

amjon.

Dean0088 wrote: »

Anyone ever done this?

I have a load of college work and other stuff I'm supposed to be doing. But I find I can only concentrate on anything at night.

So I'm considering flipping my life around to sleep during the day, and go to work in the evenings and study through the night.

Did this for my finals. Worked a treat.

Celly Smunt

I love nightshifts,there's something great in waking up at 7 putting on a movie and heading to work in the dead of night.It just suits me.

orestes

Did late night bar work for a few years. No early shifts, 6pm till about 4am 5 nights a week, so going to bed at about 6am and getting up at about 4pm. Doing the odd late night if it's a part time job for college or something is one thing, but actually living long term like that becomes a nightmarish version of groundhog day and really messes you up. Some people are suited to it, but like someone else said if you enjoy being normal don't do it. It's lonely as fukk and really bad for your health, physically and mentally, you have almost no social life, you don't eat properly, it just ends up an all round killer, especially in winter when you go a couple of months without seeing any daylight at all.

dyer

this was on bbc news today, might be of interest!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21572686

i tend to like the dark side.. i seem to be more creative at night, could well be that im just going mad too

Ruudi_Mentari

It's hard during winter when you become full-on nocturnal and whatever daylight is just cold and overcast and harder to face anyhow but I like the nightlife, don't want to be caught nodding off when the night is relatively young would sooner only be coming 'round.

But when summer comes around we have no option but to adapt even if you for some reason prefer eternal icy grim half arsed 'days' that chill you to the bone, really calm but really dull and permeating cold that's hard to shake and it just looks like death and is hardly growth promoting.. only promotes nocturnal activity if you ask me and stay out of a nine to five for too long and it's hard to readjust. those can become the very hours I sleep through (occasionally / at most) during the winter but certainly wouldn't go any further than that am hoping for reversal, not some kind of fcuked up full circle solution

Ruudi_Mentari

It really is like some kind of vampirism though and I certainly feel like a lost boy for it.

Weight of the day! I bet day people can deal with night better than the vice versa.

My OH is away working. 6pm - 5am 7 days a week. It's his fourth week and won't be home for another two. Then it's a week off.

Think he deserves steak and BJs every night he is home

andymurphy93

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

My OH is away working. 6pm - 5am 7 days a week. It's his fourth week and won't be home for another two. Then it's a week off.

Think he deserves steak and BJs every night he is home

BEST WIFE EVER!!!!

stoneill

stoneill wrote: »

A lot of people who have never done shift work think this - they base this on their limited experience of staying out late once or twice.
It is more than sleep patterns that gets messed up. It messes with your whole body, it messes with when you are hungry, what type of hunger, when your need to use bathrooms, try having to get up at 4am on your rest days to take a crap, there is a buzzing sensation behind your eyes, you can't sleep well at night, you find it hard to stay awake during the day. I could go on and on, but basically NO - if you don't need to then don't do it.

Well in fairness while I haven't done night shifts myself I did say that two family members both do them, well my mother does a proper night shift 8pm to 8am and my uncle works 5pm to 2:30am however he would wait up for hours after his shift, until at least 6am and often up to 9am. I also said they would swap them for nothing. Both had to fight to keep their night shift actually especially my mother. They both work in two very different areas also.

Now as I said my mother works 7 nights on 7 nights off and converts into a more normal sleep pattern on her week off without much difficulty (obviously easier than if you are working days rather than being off). While my uncle works a normal 5 day week of evenings and never changes shift, he would also keep the same sleep pattern on his time off, i.e. he always does his sleeping in the day.

The point I was making is that its the doing nights on week and days the next that is the killer, if you just did nights then you wouldn't have problems with changing your sleep pattern etc. Also you mention getting up a 4am on rest days for a crap, why not stick to your up at night and sleeping in the day pattern on days off also its the transitions that's the hard part, not always possible but changes should be an exception rather than a rule.