Nurses are no strangers to working odd hours. Like law enforcement and corrections personnel, firefighters, factory shift workers, and people employed in countless industries, many nurses and their colleagues sacrifice a regular sleep schedule for their careers.

For those whose work schedules involve burning the midnight oil multiple nights per week over long periods—or who work on a split shift schedule—the impact can be enormously disruptive and unhealthy. No matter how you slice it, working nights can result in all sorts of negative outcomes.

sleep is essential to physical and mental health, so if you work the night shift, you will face many challenges with an inherently skewed sleep schedule. Do you know how to cope?

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Although Hamlet once said, “To sleep, perchance to dream,” in reference to his fears of death, we can also apply that famous quote to our desire for high-quality sleep and our fears of not getting those needs met.

When you sleep, your brain — your inner hard drive — organizes and consolidates information and clears its cache. Metabolically, your body accomplishes great healing and cellular repair during sleep.

We can all relate to how functioning on poor sleep can feel: compromised cognition and concentration, physical exhaustion, lack of coordination, emotional lability and irritability, the risk of developing long-term health problems, and just plain old feeling bad. It can be a mess, and you can regularly feel like you’ve been run over by a truck.

When it comes to dreams, there are many theories of the purpose that dreaming performs. The benefits of REM sleep cannot be overstated, including the processing of emotions and memories. There’s no substitute for solid sleep, and as many sleep specialists would say, those who claim only to need three or four hours of sleep per night are deluding themselves since most adults generally need at least seven hours per night.

Living with the Effects of Night Shift

According to the Sleep Foundation

, night shift workers must practice effective ways to deal with the health consequences of their schedules. Let’s explore some strategies recommended by the experts:

Be conscientious about caffeine: Too many cups of coffee can frazzle your nervous system. No matter how tempting, try to avoid caffeine during the second half of your shift to avoid impairing your ability to fall asleep once you’re home.

Nap if you can: Napping before your shift can help you feel more rested. If you’re lucky enough to work in a facility where opportunity and space for naps are provided (obviously an extremely rare situation), take advantage of the offer.

Set up a healthy sleep environment and practice good sleep hygiene: Sleeping during the day can be challenging. A cool room, blackout curtains, eye masks, white noise, and earplugs can be helpful. Healthy bedtime rituals (no matter the time of day) and other practices can enhance sleep quality and quantity.

Pay attention to light exposure: Exposure to screens can impair sleep. Regarding screen exposure at work, some optometrists can coat your lenses with a material that filters blue light. Alternatively, you can buy special non-prescription blue light filter glasses that fit over your own or can be worn by those who don’t wear eyeglasses.

Being exposed to lights early enough can be helpful for setting your internal biological clock, but this must occur many hours before sleep since exposure to bright light during the several hours before sleep can keep your brain active when you want to wind down. That said, nurses getting off shift at 7:30 a.m. and wanting to go to bed as soon as possible will have had exposure to the light of computers and the sun all too recently.

Engage the help of a sleep specialist: Doctors and nurse practitioners who are specialists in the science of sleep can identify underlying sleep disorders (e.g., Restless Legs Syndrome, sleep apnea, and periodic limb movement disorder) and can recommend medications, supplements, and other interventions that help normalize an abnormal sleep schedule.

Ask your loved ones for support: Request that the people you live with respect your need for sleep during the day when they’re likely to be active. Ask your friends to understand your inability to socialize when you need to catch up on sleep.

Sleep for Health

Sleep is undeniably essential to your well-being on every level. From the physical and emotional to the psychological and social, sleep has a pervasive impact. When your ability to get sufficient rest is impaired, you can suffer greatly. Sleep deprivation can also lead to making errors at work, driving in a dangerously fatigued state, and more.

If you work nights regularly, it’s crucial to pay attention to how you regulate the rhythms of your sleep cycles. You don’t want the negative consequences of poor sleep to haunt your life and your relationships, so if you’ve lost your focus on sleep, it’s time to bring it back into your field of vision.

As Hamlet lamented, “to sleep, perchance to dream.” May your sleep and dreams be sweet, refreshing, healthy, and balanced. You deserve no less.

The post How to Overcome the Challenges of Night Shift  first appeared on Daily Nurse.