Night Shift

It is a rite of passage as a brand new RN to work the night shift. A necessary duty required of the newbies. Now that I've put in 4 months worth of graveyard duty I have some thoughts and feelings I need to purge onto the blogosphere.

Let's start with the positive aspects, shall we. 

Night shift workers get a bit sensitive when people say this, but honestly, night shift is less busy than day shift. OK, I said it. It's true. Not that it can't BE very, very busy sometimes, but in general - it is less busy. You don't have PT/OT, social work, case managers, dieticians, and the rounding MD's and their teams calling you every other minute. For this reason I think night shift is quite ideal for a new graduate nurse because after you have passed your meds and completed your assessments you have some down time where you can actually sit and think about your patients, read the progress notes and look up their disease processes. It's a great opportunity to learn and soak up information.

For that reason I have enjoyed night shift. I like that there's a more laid back feel to it, particularly coming from working as an LPN on day shift at a busy rehab center. It has been such a nice transition in that regard.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOWEVER, working night shift has been incredibly difficult for me. If you don't wish to hear my complaints and woes I beg you to go no further.

So here we go.

I hate that I feel like I am in a constant state of exhaustion. It doesn't matter if I get 15 hours of sleep, the dark crevices under my eyes only continue to etch themselves deeper into my face. My sleep/wake cycle is completely messed up. I've taken to just staying on the night shift schedule even when I don't work because it's just too hard to try to transition from sleeping during the day to sleeping during the night and then having to switch back again two days later.

If I was a single person with no need of social interaction this would be an ok lifestyle, but all the people I love and care about do not share this schedule with me. That results in me being awake at 2 AM like I am right now, sitting all alone in the living room, while everyone else sleeps. No one to talk to or hang out with. It also makes me really, really miss my husband. He often doesn't get home from work until after I have already left for work, this can lead to days that I don't even see him. I also work every other weekend and so I don't even get to see him that often on his days off.

Night shift has left me feeling pretty lonely.

Night shift has also left me feeling fat. I have no idea when I should eat and when I shouldn't. Eating a huge meal at 1 in the morning just feels wrong, but I'm usually ravenous with hunger at that time, and no one has any self control at 1 AM, so I end up eating a basket of greasy fries and 7 packets of peanut butter with a cookie on the side. My old exercising habits have also all but gone out the window, because no gym is open in the middle of the night, and it's not like I'm about to go on a bike ride or a run by myself at 3 in the morning.

Night shift has me also feeling pretty spiritually depleted. I work every other saturday night and I'm just too tired and unmotivated to try to come home, shower and go to church after a long night shift when all I want to do is crash and sleep.

This post is sounding complain-y so I will stop now, but I've just been feeling a quite worn down and needed to vent.

I don't think I was meant to be a night owl.